{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_47314/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_47314","id":"gutenberg_47314","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/47314","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Natural theology","Religion -- Philosophy","Religion and science"],"text":"Transcriber's Note\n\nThe author's classification of footnotes has been preserved, but\nfootnotes have been located at the end of chapters\n\n\n  THE PHILOSOPHY\n\n  OF\n\n  NATURAL THEOLOGY.\n\n\n  AN ESSAY,\n\n  IN CONFUTATION OF THE SCEPTICISM\n\n  OF THE PRESENT DAY,\n\n\n  WHICH OBTAINED A PRIZE AT OXFORD, NOV. 26TH, 1872.\n\n\n  BY THE REVEREND\n\n  WILLIAM JACKSON, M.A., F.S.A.,\n\n  FORMERLY FELLOW OF WORCESTER COLLEGE,\n  AUTHOR OF \"POSITIVISM,\" \"RIGHT AND WRONG,\"\n  \"THE GOLDEN SPELL,\" ETC.\n\n\n  NEW YORK:\n  A. D. F. RANDOLPH & CO.,\n  BROADWAY.\n\n  MDCCCLXXV.\n\n\n\n\n  TO THE MOST NOBLE\n  THE MARQUIS OF SALISBURY,\n  CHANCELLOR\n  OF THE\n  UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD,\n  &c., &c., &c.,\n\n  THE FOLLOWING PAGES ARE,\n  WITH HIS LORDSHIP'S PERMISSION,\n  RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED\n  BY THEIR AUTHOR.\n\n\n_From the \"Oxford University Gazette\" of June 14th, 1870._\n\nPRIZE ESSAY.\n\nCircumstances have induced an Individual, who wishes to remain\nunknown, to offer a Prize of \u00a3100, to be competed for by Members of\nthe University of Oxford of not less standing than Master of Arts, and\nby any above that standing, for the best Essay in confutation of the\nMaterialism of the present day by arguments derived from Evidences of\nIntelligence, Design, Contrivance, and Adaptation of Means to Ends, in\nthe Universe, and especially in Man considered in his Moral Nature, his\nReligious Aptitudes, and his Intellectual Powers; and in all Organic\nNature. The observation also to be made and supported in the course of\nthe Essay that the Will and Wisdom of the Creator may be a sufficient\ncause for deviations from the established course of nature, and that\nthe Free-will of man, in things within his power and influence, may be\na cause of similar deviations.\n\n It is desired that all arguments used against Materialism should be\n independent of those of Hegel, and of what is called the Spiritual\n Philosophy, which had its rise in Germany.\n\n A period of two years will be allowed after the Public Announcement of\n the subject before the competing Essays will be required to be sent\n in to the Judges: and it is a condition of the competition that the\n Copyright of the successful Essay shall be the property of the Donor\n of the Prize; but that if published, the profits (if any) shall belong\n to the Writer.\n\n The Very Reverend the Dean of St. Paul's, the Regius Professor of\n Divinity, and the Rev. C. Pritchard, Savilian Professor of Astronomy,\n have consented to act as Judges.\n\n Essays must be sent to the Registrar of the University on or before\n the 12th of June, 1872. The Essays are to be distinguished by mottoes,\n the writer's name being sent at the same time in a sealed envelope, in\n the manner prescribed for the Chancellor's Prizes.\n\n  F. K. LEIGHTON,\n  Vice-Chancellor.\n\n  ALL SOULS COLLEGE,\n  _June 13, 1870_.\n\nAfter the decease of Dean Mansel the last clause but one of the above\nnotice was thus modified in the _Gazette_ for Dec. 5th, 1871:--\n\n The Very Reverend the Dean of Canterbury, the Regius Professor of\n Divinity, and the Rev. C. Pritchard, Savilian Professor of Astronomy,\n have consented to act as Judges.\n\nThe following announcement appeared in the _Gazette_ for Nov. 26th,\n1872:--\n\n PRIZE ESSAY.\n\n The Judges appointed to award a Prize of \u00a3100 offered for the best\n Essay in confutation of Materialism have adjudged the Prize to the\n Rev. W. JACKSON, M.A., F.S.A., late Fellow of Worcester\n College.\n\n  H. G. LIDDELL,\n  Vice-Chancellor.\n\n  _November 25, 1872._\n\nIn a letter dated Dec. 26th, 1872, the Donor of the Prize surrendered\nany claim that he might have upon the Copyright of the Essay, and\nrequested the Author to proceed with its publication.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nThe Essay now published is the expansion of a thin volume by the\npresent writer, which was printed more than four years ago.[1] Natural\nTheology, considered as a science, had been at that time pronounced\nextinct and impossible by very eminent authorities. From this decision\nI felt myself constrained to differ; and thought it worth while to put\non record a plea for what appeared to me an unduly neglected branch of\nPhilosophy.\n\nSuch contempt of a pursuit possessing so many claims on the favourable\nattention of educated minds, seemed a fact to be accounted for in some\nway. After considerable thought, I ventured on asserting that the\nmethod latterly employed in treatises on this once popular science,\nfurnished the true reason of its decline and fall. That method I could\nnot avoid condemning as both inadequate and suicidal.\n\nThe publication of my Sermon in 1870, was followed by a number of\nletters and critiques from scientific and literary men. Not one amongst\nthem alleged any worse fault than novelty against the matter of my\nbook, and undue compression against its manner. Many of their remarks\nwere of the most encouraging description, and affected me deeply by\nreason of the celebrity of their writers, whom I had previously known\nonly by their works and their reputation. One most generous letter\nfrom the Author who, above all others, had called my own intellectual\nlife into active energy, excited, in my mind, a warmth of feeling\nabsolutely indescribable.\n\nWhen, therefore, a Prize on this subject was offered for adjudication\nsubject to the appointment of my own University, I felt glad to embrace\nan occasion which might be called in the truest sense an \"Opportunity.\"\nWhat I have produced is to be found in the following pages. When\nengaged in writing them, it was my most anxious wish and endeavour to\nbe _honest_: to advocate what I thought and still think true, without\ndisguising the difficulties of my own conclusion, or assailing its\nantagonists by gratuitous insinuations or unfairnesses of any sort.\nShould such a meanness appear, I would earnestly desire the leaf on\nwhich it is printed to be torn from my book.\n\nThe delays which have befallen these pages since they were first sent\nto press in the former half of 1873, have caused much regret to both\nauthor and publishers. Our troubles began with a singular misadventure\nto a quantity of MS.; which, together with other circumstances, delayed\nprinting till after the time originally fixed for publication. The next\nseason was lost in consequence of severe domestic affliction. Those of\nmy readers who have ever gone into print, will most readily commiserate\nthe anxiety caused by such unlooked for disappointments.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe ensuing line of argument was suggested to my mind when a young\nOxonian, in consequence of circumstances with which it is needless\nto trouble my readers. What I then thought its special strength,\nlay in the point of its combining two totally different kinds of\nproof:--one, drawn from a survey of the world we live in,--the other,\nfrom what is nearer to ourselves--the moral truth given us by our\npersonal consciousness. I also thought that any particular weakness\nalleged against one proof, could not be incident to the other; and,\ntherefore, that since both lines of evidence, (kept apart while under\nexamination), met at last in one and the same result, my inquiry had\narrived at a demonstrably certain conclusion. At the same time, I could\nnot but feel a wholesome distrust of my reasonings on a subject, which,\nthough often discussed, had never, as I then believed, been looked at\nexactly from my own point of view.\n\nSomewhat later in life, I learned from Paley's commentators and\ncontinuators, that the attack and defence of Natural Theology had for\nyears been conformed to the position taken up by the Archdeacon, so\nfar at least as the popular science of this country was concerned. But\nthe sceptical tactics of Hume shewed me a much wider plan of assault;\nand in studying his great German antagonist I saw that a double line\nof defence had been contemplated by him. I have since observed that no\npart of Kant's philosophy is less commonly known to English readers\nthan his method and results in those most priceless of his critical\ninvestigations, the treatises forming a ground-work of Moral Science.\nAs may at once be supposed, the discovery that I really had a sort of\nsympathiser in Kant, was the greatest possible encouragement to my mind.\n\nYet there remained a very heavy discouragement. Evidently, any one\nwho should try to pursue two very separate but convergent lines of\nreasoning, must undergo a most toilsome task, and one little likely\nto be performed without long and continued effort. And, harder yet to\nanswer was the question next following: Who will read your patiently\nobtained results, to say nothing of the collateral topics which must\nin logical fairness be argued by the way? After all, the inevitable\ndrawback to Natural Theology lies in the fact that, in order to be held\na valid science, it must necessarily become a complex one.\n\nThis last difficulty remains my chiefest apprehension still. Neither\nin the Essay itself, nor yet in the additions made to it, have I\nintroduced any one point which it seemed permissible to omit with\njustice to the real issue. Yet I dare not hope that many eyes, except\nthose of the practised student, will easily perceive how germane to\nthat issue are several among the subjects discussed. One class of\nthinkers will, however, welcome the whole of these inquiries; and this\nclass contains the earnest men for whom above all others I have written.\n\nThe amount of MS. sent to the Registrar was much less in compass than\nthe present volume. But Notes and Illustrations were intended from\nthe first, and, had there existed a doubt as to their propriety, it\nwould have been at once removed by the counsel of competent advisers.\nThe risks attaching to the Essay in its smaller shape were said to\nbe two: (1) An evident appearance of unwilling brevity, and (2) a\npossible charge of novel thought, bordering on paradox. In attempting\nto overcome these obstacles to favourable attention, I have pursued the\nfollowing course:--\n\nThe text of the Essay is printed as originally written, with only a\nvery few verbal changes for the sake of improved clearness. A number of\nfoot-notes belonging to its first draft, remain distinguished by the\nordinary marks of reference.[2]\n\nIn reperusing the text, I set myself to consider how many sympathisers\nI could find. The best answer to any possible charge of Paradox,\nseemed to be a roll-call of thinkers who, for their own purposes, have\nasserted positions more or less approaching those I had attempted\nto maintain. The number of auxiliaries I have thus succeeded in\nassembling, is, I confess, a matter of considerable self-gratulation.\nYet, I do not appeal to such opinions as _authorities_, in any other\nsense than so far forth as they are the decisions of _experts_\nin different provinces of knowledge. In whatever concerns his own\ndepartment, each scientific worker has assuredly a right to be heard.\nThe weight of confirmation thus given to my own previous results, is\nenhanced by the fact that most of the authors cited, pursued different\nobjects from mine, and wrote without any bias favourable to Natural\nTheology. Respecting more than one of them, I feel inclined to repeat\nthe ancient adage, \"My antagonist has become my helper.\"\n\nThe Quotations themselves have been divided into separate classes.\nThe greatest number illustrate particular expressions, sentences, and\nparagraphs. These are arranged as foot-notes on the several pages of\nText, and are referred to by the _small_ letters of the alphabet.\nOthers, explaining or confirming principles, of general importance to\nthe argument, have been distinguished by _capital_ letters, and placed\nat the end of the chapters to which they appertain. With this latter\ndivision are classed a third set of extracts, which aim at expounding\ncertain special thoughts, and opening out to the real student useful\npaths of prolonged investigation.\n\nOne circumstance connected with the Additional Notes, is alluded to at\nthe bottom of page 27. Originally, I had made only a few citations from\nthoroughly sceptical writers. But, against this plan were urged the\nfollowing objections. (1.) In arguing questions of all kinds, definite\npoints are present to the mind of every disputant, and against them he\ndirects his argument. His expressions are always antithetic to these\npoints, and should they be left in the shadow, all antithesis is lost,\nand the real force of the argument obscured. Sometimes it is even\nmistaken;--a truth which may be illustrated by comparing the positions\nof great leaders in politics or theology with the positions occupied\nby their disciples. The former always speak by way of antithesis,--the\nlatter seldom construe their leaders' words antithetically. Hence,\nthe disciples never fail to outrun their teachers. Antithesis is\nin truth a verbal counterpoise; and where it disappears, balance is\nnot seldom overthrown. Thus, said my advisers, your reasoning must\nnecessarily suffer by a general loss of clear definition. Again, (2)\nthey continued;--Since the time when you began your Essay, Scepticism\nin general, Materialism and Mechanism in particular, or, to speak\nbriefly, the various denials of Theism, have ceased to be subjects on\nwhich reticence is feasible. An Address of Mr. Gladstone's delivered\nin a room, and spoken to a company of youths, soon became world-wide;\nit has been, and will be read, quoted, and commented on, wheresoever\nthe English language is understood. One daily newspaper attractively\nwritten, devotes many of its clever pages to making known in a forensic\nmanner the many different phases of sceptical opinion. And some\nreligious journals explain, with complete freedom, what the disbeliefs\nare which they consider most reprehensible. Reticence, therefore, is\nsimply thrown away. Some may desire to see it practised towards young\npeople, but such \"economizers\" are, in effect, theoretical. They forget\nthat the Battle of Thought comes to educated young minds along with the\nBattle of Life; and woe to the unprepared either way! They become, one\nand all, bewildered.\n\nThese reasons have satisfied my own judgment up to a certain point. I\nhave consequently added _such_ quotations from sceptical authors, as\nseemed desirable for the purpose of _limiting_ my several positions\nwith antithetic distinctness; a kind of definition which I admit to\nbe the most distinct of all. And to these extracts I have appended\nsome others, plainly expressing the conclusions which the opponents\nof Theism _ought_ to reach, provided their views are carried out with\nfairness and consistency. Conclusions of this kind can only be obtained\nfrom Sceptics themselves. In what are called \"logical consequences\"\nput by an author into the mouth of his adversaries, I, for one, have\nno confidence whatever. To draw such inferences and glory in their\nwrong-headedness, is like inventing both sides of a controversial\ndialogue, defeating the party destined to defeat, and then laying claim\nto a philosophic victory. Or, we may take the reverse supposition. A\nwriter is too honest for such ill-gotten triumph. This same quality of\ncandour will, most probably, induce him to put the case he opposes in a\nlight so advantageous, as to throw fresh doubt upon his own.\n\nIf, then, I have erred in over-quoting upon these accounts, I cannot\nplead that the error is committed unadvisedly.\n\nIt seems right to say, that, in mustering auxiliaries, I found the best\nfriends to my argument were the most truly philosophic Biologists.\nIt would indeed be strange and sad, should the genuine leaders of\nthought in any among the Natural Sciences be reckoned real adversaries\nof Natural Theology. But, in order to convey an exact impression to\nthe reader's mind, I must beg him to peruse, in connection with this\nstatement, the note on Materialism appended to Chapter III.; and,\nmore particularly, its concluding pages. Towards the hybrid class\nmentioned p. 246, I cannot help entertaining a sentiment the reverse of\ncomplimentary.\n\nTo several distinguished persons who have bestowed upon this\nundertaking the aids of advice or sympathy, I offer a tribute of\nrespectful gratitude. In one particular they will, I hope, think their\nkindness not utterly thrown away; since, unlike many recipients of\ngood counsel, I have followed the opinions given me. It is with a\ndeep solemnity of emotion, I thus venture on recording my heartfelt\nindebtedness. One, who was glad that words of his had helped me, now\nadorns no longer the noblest of assemblies by his eloquence. To my\npersonal sorrow, he will not cast a glance on the pages over which his\nfavour threw a ray of encouragement.\n\nThat same last change, O half-sceptical yet whole-earnest Reader,\nawaits both thee and myself. To thee, I am no more than the unseen\nutterer of certain thoughts, nourished through a period of blended hope\nand anxiety. It is now thine, to take unto thyself such reasonings\nas may fairly lay claim to some serious consideration. It is mine to\naccept the mixed consequences of their utterance;--the kindness and\ncontempt which follow believing advocacy always. Through all, and above\nall, there will remain with me--and perchance with thee also--the sense\nof a new Responsibility.\n\nThese two shares in this slight book on the largest of subjects, belong\nin a fashion to earnest reader and anxious author for the time present.\nSoon they will be ours, and not ours. As days pass by, thought and\nutterance will bring less to both of us. We shall both have tinctured\nour lives more deeply with the Divine, or the Not-Divine; we shall both\nhave sealed the secret fountains of our hearts, in readiness for the\nGrave and its inevitable Futurities.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n [asterism] \"Natural Theology attempts to demonstrate the existence of\n a personal First Cause, supreme Reason, and Will. The relations of\n mankind towards such a Being, are called natural religion.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n We look upon the starry heavens and say, _as_ man creates within his\n own soul, and gives to airy nothing a thought, a name, a purpose, and\n a reality, _so_ Almighty God created the Divine poem of this universal\n frame; His will is its substance, His majestic thought and purpose\n shine out in its adornment, and we--we are hidden in the hollow of His\n hand. Every marvel of the visible raises our sense of the infinite\n variety and beauty of the invisible, until, attracted by Him Who is\n the first mover of the outward and the inward alike, we make of this\n wonderful orb we tread upon a solid ground of support from which to\n mount, to fly to God and be at rest.\"\n\nThese paragraphs are taken from the Appendix to my little volume on\nNatural Theology alluded to in the beginning of this Preface. They\nwere intended as comments on the words with which the Sermon itself\nconcluded:--\n\n \"I have only to add that time could not permit my carrying this\n fruitful subject beyond its obscure and dry first principles. There\n is a brighter district of thought, an upland territory, as it were,\n rising towards our highest inheritance; a border country where Natural\n Theology melts into Spiritual Religion, and where the true offspring\n of God learn the lineaments of their Father's divine love. I turn with\n regret from this land of living light.\"\n\nSuch, then, were the feelings with which I could not help regarding\nthe scientific limits of Natural Theology. I felt it nothing less than\na disappointment to traverse the paths of positive fact and argument,\nand to close just at the very point where the human head gains a\nresponse from the human heart. It seemed like the task of a landscape\npainter, who, after depicting successive plains made shadowy by tangled\nbrushwood and dark forest-growth, should be compelled to lay down his\npencil, and forbear transferring to his canvas the beautiful downs and\nsun-lighted hills overlooking those more obscure regions. Compared with\nthe painter's regrets, were mine, I asked, less natural? The attributes\nof Deity already dwelt upon through the chain of my argument, were\nnot only fitted to bring His existence home to Reason, but also to\nmove earnest spirits by a strong sense of elevated hopes and duties,\ndevotion and aspiration. These religious sentiments might have yielded\nthe purest lights of my landscape. All that had gone before seemed more\nnegative than affirmative;--rather to have been sketched in neutral\ntints than in radiant and glowing colours.\n\nA similar feeling of deep concern attended the conclusion of the\npresent Essay; increased by an inevitable thought that the reiterated\ndisappointment seemed likely to be a disappointment always. It was,\ntherefore, a very great gratification to find in the honour of an\nelection to the Bampton Lectureship for 1875, the possibility of adding\na crown and completion to all my foregone work. The scheme of these\nLectures enables me to treat of Natural Religion; to penetrate the\nupland territory, the border country where Man may view, as he walks\nheavenwards, the lineaments of his Father's Divine love.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBefore this time next year, I may, therefore, hope to have realized my\npurpose. The volume of Bampton Lectures for 1875, may then have become\nthe appropriate conclusion of this present book.\n\n  OXFORD,\n\n  _Nov., 1874_.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] Right and Wrong. A Sermon upon the Question Under what Conditions\nis a Science of Natural Theology possible? Preached before the\nUniversity of Oxford, March 6, 1870.\n\n[2] All citations made in the original draft, or in the foot-notes\nbelonging to it, have been revised and altered to suit later editions\nof the authorities cited. Thus there are several extracts from\nbooks which may appear to be recent publications, but are, in fact,\nauthorized _rifaccimenti_.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n  CHAP.                                            PAGES\n\n  I.--INTRODUCTORY: MOTIVES OF ESSAY--DIVISION\n  INTO CHAPTERS--METHOD OF STUDY--CONSILIENT\n  PROOFS                                            1-18\n\n  ADDITIONAL NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS               18-39\n\n\n  II.--PHILOSOPHY OF DESIGN: HOSTILE CRITICISMS\n  EXAMINED--EXPLANATIONS AND RESTATEMENTS          41-82\n\n  ADDITIONAL NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS               83-138\n\n\n  III.--CONDITIONS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE: ITS DISABILITIES\n  AND FIRST PRINCIPLES--IDEALISM--POSITIVISM--MATERIALISM--WE\n  MUST ACCEPT ULTIMATE TRUTHS                     139-181\n\n  ADDITIONAL NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS              182-248\n\n\n  IV.--BELIEFS OF REASON: PRINCIPLE OF INDUCTION\n  --THEISM--CONFIRMATIONS AND ILLUSTRATIONS       249-289\n\n\n  V.--PRODUCTION AND ITS LAW: CONDITIONS OF\n  ACTIVITY--WILL AND REASON IN CONTRAST\n  WITH MATERIALISM AND MECHANISM--CREATIVE\n  MIND CHARACTERISED BY VISIBLE PRODUCTS          291-348\n\n  ADDITIONAL NOTE                                 349\n\n\n  VI.--CAUSATION: LIMITS OF PHYSICAL LAW--THE\n  BEGINNING--CAUSE AND WILL--MIRACLES             351-373\n\n\n  VII.--RESPONSIBILITY: RIGHT AND WRONG--A\n  FUTURE STATE--SUPREME WILL AND PERSONALITY--\n  POSSIBLE RELATIONS OF THE\n  DIVINE BEING WITH MANKIND--EXPECTATION\n  OF SUPERNATURAL AIDS TO KNOWLEDGE\n  AND PRACTICE--THE BALANCE                       375-396\n\n  L'ENVOY                                         396-398\n\n\n\n\n  LIST OF\n  ADDITIONAL NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.\n\n\n                                                            PAGE\n\n  The Right Honourable W. E. Gladstone and others on Modern\n  Scepticism                                                  19\n\n  On Corruption of the Judgment by misdirected Moral\n  Sentiments                                                  28\n\n  Special Pleading in History and Morals                      29\n\n  The Method employed throughout this Essay                   31\n\n  On the Effect of Consilient Proofs                          37\n\n  The abstract reasonings involved in Natural Theology        83\n\n  On the phrase \"Design implies a Designer\"                   98\n\n  Hume on the Analogies of Art and Nature                    101\n\n  The Pantheistic consequences charged upon Physical\n  Speculations                                               103\n\n  The extent and divisions of the Science of Natural\n  Theology                                                   104\n\n  On Teleology                                               107\n\n  Account of some theories respecting our Personal Identity  182\n\n  Helmholtz, Popular Lectures on Recent Progress of the\n  Theory of Vision                                           190\n\n  Helmholtz on Specialties of Sensibility                    199\n\n  Popular account of Pure Idealism with critical remarks     204\n\n  On the Relations of Fact and Theory                        215\n\n  On the \"Unknowable\"                                        217\n\n  Mr. J. S. Mill as an Independent Moralist                  223\n\n  Archebiosis, or Spontaneous Generation                     226\n\n  On Materialism                                             237\n\n  The Doctrine of Chances applied to the Structural\n  Development of the Eye                                     349\n\n\n\n\nTHE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY.\n\n\n \"Finis vit\u00e6 in primis noscendus est, ut ad eum actiones omnes dirigere\n valeamus; non minus qu\u00e0m naviganti portus ad quem deveniat ante omnia\n statuendus.\"\n\n  _Ficinus in Platonis Philebum_, Cap. I.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nINTRODUCTORY.\n\n\n    \"Flower in the crannied wall,\n        I pluck you out of the crannies;--\n    Hold you here, root and all, in my hand,\n    Little flower--but if I could understand\n      What you are, root and all, and all in all,\n        I should know what God and man is.\"\n\n    _Tennyson._\n\n\"I have written under the conviction that no Philosophy of the Universe\ncan satisfy the minds of thoughtful men which does not deal with such\nquestions as inevitably force themselves on our notice, respecting the\nAuthor and the Object of the Universe; and also under the conviction\nthat every Philosophy of the Universe which has any consistency, must\nsuggest answers, at least conjectural, to such questions. No _Cosmos_\nis complete from which the question of Deity is excluded; and all\nCosmology has a side turned towards Theology.\"--_Whewell, Philosophy of\nDiscovery_, Preface, p. vi.\n\n\"All science is but the intercalation, each more comprehensive than\nthat which it endeavours to explain, between the great Primal Cause\nand the ultimate effect.\"--_Professor Allman's Address to the British\nAssociation at Bradford_, 1873.\n\n    \"Glory about thee, without thee; and thou fulfillest thy doom,\n    Making Him broken gleams, and a stifled splendour and gloom.\n    Speak to Him, thou, for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet,--\n    Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.\"\n\n    _Tennyson._\n\n\nSYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER I.\n\n This Introductory Chapter consists of three parts. The first lays down\n the questions proposed, and shows the necessity of asking them. The\n second illustrates what may be termed in Art-phrase the _motives_ of\n the Essay. The third briefly describes its method, and explains the\n readiest mode of studying Natural Theology.\n\n _Analysis_--Inquiries underlying Natural Theology--Way in which they\n are answered by our Instinctive Persuasions--How far this answer is\n sufficing; how far influential.\n\n Phases of Doubt; undeclared Scepticism and Indifferentism--Origin and\n leaders of the modern Sceptical and Materialistic Schools--Doubts of\n Intellect distinguished from Scepticism of Immorality--Social dangers\n and alarms exemplified.\n\n Method of this Essay, and requests as to the mode of reading\n it--Divisions of Argument; their separate and consilient effect.\n\n\n_Additional Notes and Illustrations._\n\n A.--The Right Honourable W. E. Gladstone and others on Modern\n Scepticism.\n\n B.--On Corruption of the Judgment by misdirected Moral Sentiments.\n\n C.--On Special Pleading in History and Morals.\n\n D.--On the Method employed throughout this Essay.\n\n E.--On the Effect of Consilient Proofs.\n\n\n\n\nTHE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nINTRODUCTORY.\n\n\nNo subjects of thought have ever been proposed more essential to the\nculture and happiness of mankind than the two following inquiries.\n\nUpon the first, human minds dwell unweariedly through every change of\ncircumstance from childhood to advanced age. It is this:--What reason\nhave we to look for a future life after that hour of dissolution which\ninevitably awaits us all?\n\nThe second question unites itself closely, as by indissoluble links,\nto the first. We always proceed to ask, Is there sufficient ground for\nbelieving in the existence of a Supreme Moral Being, to whose righteous\ncare and kindness we can calmly commit ourselves when we come to die?\n\nSuppose any man to maintain that the universe we inhabit,--and we who\nare a portion of its occupants--came into existence by chance, he\nrenounces at once every right and title to expect a life succeeding\nhis bodily death. Chance--if the word means anything--means absolute\nuncertainty; and from that which is in its own nature uncertain, what\ncontinuing effects, what conclusive expectation, can be drawn?\n\nNeither is the prospect improved by Materialists[a], in whose opinion\nthe being of man comprehends no element differing essentially, and in\nkind, from the natural world he rules over. We see actually consequent\nupon every death-bed the decay of our material frame; if, therefore,\nthat frame be not the casket of a brighter jewel, we can assuredly\naffirm no hope higher or happier than corruption.\n\nThe feelings of most human beings revolt from a destiny so ignoble. And\nmany persons are satisfied that this revolt of feeling is in itself a\nsufficient ground for some belief in Immortality. Why, they ask, should\nso powerful an instinct dwell in the breast of our race with only a\nmisleading issue? The higher instincts of creatures below us do not\nmislead them regarding that which is to come. Insects innumerable make\nprovision for the certain sustenance of a progeny they never can live\nto behold. They also anticipate for themselves a futurity of life and\ndevelopment. The caterpillar invests himself with the web he has spun,\nand sinks into a chrysalid-sepulchre, to emerge from it in sun-lighted\nbeauty. Can any valid reason be assigned why the intuitive aspirations\nof man should be more fallacious than such practical foresights of the\nmerely animal world below him?\n\nSo far as the writer of these pages is aware, no one has ever alleged\na reason why mankind should be thus deluded. And without going\nfurther than our own country, it seems probable that this instinctive\npersuasion is seldom wanting amongst the greater part of our people.\nAlthough the moral consequences of such a persuasion, sometimes merely\npassive, may be far less than good men could desire, yet they are\nfrequently strong enough to assist the weak and wavering when exposed\nto sudden temptations. In the \"short and simple annals of the poor,\"\nmay be read countless instances of the fact. Neglected men and women,\nthe scorned outcasts of society, have been often held back by it from\ngreater criminality. They have found themselves unable to acquiesce\nin the belief of _their_ world's opinion--the opinion of their evil\nfriends and companions--that death must be to all creatures the certain\nend of all things.\n\nIf, on the other hand, absolute knowledge of a future state were the\nnatural gift of each person's understanding, there are thousands\namongst our educated classes to whom the trial and terror of their own\nhearts would be incalculably mitigated. Numbers feel that speculative\ndoubts concerning the Being of a God, and life after death, are sources\nof a continual perplexity and distress, under which they find little\nor no sympathy. In every fresh affliction or anxiety, such a mind has\nto sustain a double burden of sorrow, and concerning such it seems\nemphatically true, that \"the heart knoweth his own bitterness.\" There\nmay, however, be suggested one alleviation for every similar instance\nof despondency. The same rule holds in this respect as in all human\npursuits,--labour is, and will always continue, the appointed path\nby which we must attain. The more noble the object sought, the more\narduous the task and toil,--and what can be nobler than a well-grounded\nbelief in God and Immortality?\n\nAnother very large class of educated persons bear their doubts with\nstoical composure, account them an inevitable burden, and consider it\nlost time to ask questions concerning \"the Unknowable.\" This class is\nsustained in its attitude by the prevalence[b] of really sceptical\nwritings;--writings (that is) which deny the possibility of knowledge\nbeyond the circle of positive phenomena. Maxims to this effect are\nnot uncommonly disseminated through the periodical press, books of\nfiction, and other kinds of light literature. The rapidity of modern\nlife leads men to take opinions upon trust, and keeps them back from\nserious investigation. An ephemeral satirist becomes in their eyes\nas valuable an authority as the most deeply-thinking reasoner. Much\nwork is saved by this valuation, to say nothing of the great gain\nin self-complacency. And, no doubt, many persons feel particularly\ncomplacent in taking their tone from minds which are evidently no\nbetter informed, and no more finely strung than their own[c].\n\nThe class of sceptics just described, cannot be reckoned in figures.\nThey make up multitudes never enumerated apart in any religious\ncensus. They live and die and make no sign,--and how can quiet\nunavowed disbelief obtain a separate place in the columns of the\nRegistrar-General? Among the audible tones of respectable people it\nfinds no utterance, and therefore occupies no position. Every one\nexperienced in the world knows that this species of Indifferentism\nis usually regular at public worship, and reticent where sceptical\nphrases pass current. The only sure test is a moral one--of very slow\napplication, since it takes time for a decent sceptic to balance the\npleasures against the risks of immorality. Meantime, there remains some\npossible hope for a happier choice during the period of indecision.\n\nFar fewer, because far more strongly declared, are the literary\nlodestars of that harbourless sea, where all beyond the horizon of\ncloud and billow seems veiled and uncertain. Some amongst them may,\nafter all, be but wandering lights themselves[d], floating and drifting\nlike meteors which glimmer at nightfall across shadowy waters. Others\nappear really fixed in a dim and joyless firmament where the Present\nonly is true, the remote Past a conjecture, and the Future altogether\ninscrutable. According to them this bounded prospect is the true goal\nand real aim of our transitory life,--within it the trials and griefs\nof humanity assume their proper dimensions and pale their ineffectual\nterrors, while peace, like a river of Eden, flows out over the once\nmartyred but now ransomed race of man. Even in our own imperfect\nstruggling day, the human creature may be happy who certainly knows\nthat this mixed existence is his All--that outside it he can live no\nlife except in the memory of his fellow-men--that there is no God,\nno futurity of individual progress or perfection; but that one thing\nhappens equally to the good and the bad--the wise and the unwise.\nThis knowledge brings happiness, because it chases from the breast\nself-centred hope and fear: the man who accepts this blank beholds\nhimself, as he really is, an atom of the Universal Whole--borne now by\nthe irresistible tide of force into sunlight--borne soon by the same\nirresistible tide into a darkness of the shadow of death.\n\nCompared with this creed, the martyrs of Monotheism were\nself-loving--for did not they hope? Compared with this simple creed,\nall who have stopped short on the threshold of frightful crimes, and\nhesitated to stain their souls, were also self-loving--for did they not\nfear?\n\nA great variety of remonstrances have been addressed to writers of\nthis latter type[e]. Social consequences have been eloquently urged\nagainst hypotheses which, if realised, would weaken, or perhaps\ndestroy, self-control, foresight, and self-improvement. In reply we\nare told that these objects of pursuit still appear good and useful\nto benevolent eyes. But it should be remembered that our age is one\nof transition--half-developed as it were in Doubt. Our benevolent\nmen have not yet been fully disciplined in the coming school. Who,\ntherefore, shall safely predict for us the effects of its proposed\ndiscipline? Add that, looking at the civilised world in general,\ncertain ideas (illusions, as they are sometimes called) respecting\na Futurity influenced by our present right and wrong-doing, are\ningrained in cultured man, and may perhaps be described as connate\nwith his nineteenth-century existence[f]. Is it possible, then, for\nany one to say beforehand what may or may not be the consequence of\nuprooting cherished principles fitted in their own nature to exercise\nso practical an influence?\n\nRemonstrances of this kind, however truthful and valuable in\nthemselves, would be out of place in the ensuing pages. A contribution\nto the constructive science of Natural Theology must rest its\narguments upon the reason of the case, to the exclusion of many\ninteresting and persuasive considerations. All questions of Sociology,\nhave, however, a special fascination for numerous thinkers who are\nunlikely to overlook negative conclusions lying close upon the confines\nof their own science, and to them the treatment of such questions must\nbe remitted.\n\nThat these phases of thought have not, in fact, escaped the\nconsideration of benevolent observers, may be inferred from the special\ncircumstances under which this Essay is composed. Into every condition\n(each being required by the exigencies of the subject) the present\nwriter enters with honest cordiality. His wish and aim is to place\nbefore those who, while they doubt, still debate, certain reasonable\nconsiderations which have appeared convincing to other speculative\nminds. And he may defend himself from any possible charge of causeless\nintermeddling with other men's concerns, in the words of one amongst\nour most genuinely English poets:--\n\n    \"'Twere well, says one sage, erudite, profound,\n    Terribly arch'd and aquiline his nose,\n    And overbuilt with most impending brows,\n    'Twere well could you permit the World to live\n    As the World pleases: what's the World to you?\n    Much. I was born of woman, and drew milk\n    As sweet as charity from human breasts.\n    I think, articulate, I laugh and weep,\n    And exercise all functions of a man.\n    How then should I and any man that lives\n    Be strangers to each other?\"[3]\n\nThere are, however, doubters whom the writer can scarcely desire\nto address--human beings in whose hearts to deny God kindles a\nvivid delight, because belief in Him would compel the renunciation\nof some darling wickedness. The true spring of their Materialism,\nPantheism,--or whatever else happens to be the adopted form of\nNegation--lies within the will[g] itself. And, therefore, the wish\nto be better must precede the wish to hear any one who reasons of\nrighteousness, temperance, or judgment to come.\n\nTo those who doubt, yet desire that Truth--whichever way Truth may\nincline--shall distinctly prevail, the ensuing pages are dedicated.\nAnd one main endeavour to be kept in view by both writer and reader\nis, that, laying aside passion and prejudice, these questions may be\ndiscussed under the _siccum lumen_--the purified ray--of Right Reason.\nTo argue for victory may be allowed an advocate who pleads subject to\nthe intervention of a judge. But here we have no arbiter to say what\nis or is not allowable; here, too, the matter is in itself something\ngraver than corporeal life, or death, or all else beneath the sky;\nhere, finally, the case is personal, since each reasoner first settles\nan account with his own heart; next, tries and decides a conclusive\nissue, and by his own sentence, accepts more than any human foresight\ncan declare. Here, then, special pleading[4] is altogether out of place\non either side, and we must, if we aim at what is best, argue for\nnothing more or less than the plain and simple truth.\n\nThere must, of course, be difficulties in keeping this straight and\nhonest road. Few men like making admissions apparently at variance with\ntheir own conclusions; fewer still like to forego pleas which, though\nin their own judgment unsound, are certainly specious, and to many\nminds persuasive. Such, however, is the wish and aim of the present\nessayist. And, that he may bind himself the more firmly to his own\nresolution, he requests his readers to believe that any over-statement\nor other error of which he may fairly be found guilty, is occasioned\nby the unpleasantly common cause of ignorance,--a cause which Dr.\nJohnson confessed was his reason for defining \"_pastern_\" as a \"horse's\nknee.\" \"Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance,\" he replied, to the surprise\nof his fair critic, who expected an elaborate defence. _Per contra_,\nthe essayist may equitably claim that he shall not be convicted by a\ntoo summary and inconsiderate process. At the first blush, there will\ncertainly appear in the eyes of many readers numerous seeming mistakes,\nwhich, if carefully scrutinized, may afterwards be held the reverse. At\nall events, plain dealing and honest purpose demand that, when Truth is\nthe issue truly sought, those who approach it from opposite sides must\n(if they desire to do right) sift their objections and difficulties as\nwell as their favourite arguments.\n\nReasoning on Natural Theology falls necessarily into two divisions. The\n_first_ is made up of arguments drawn from the world without us. The\n_second_, of arguments drawn from the world within[h]. Each path of\nreasoning is subject to a cross division. We may argue affirmatively to\na definite conclusion. We may also argue negatively with the same end\nin view;--we may show how much more difficult and less tenable is the\ncontradictory hypothesis.\n\nIt would be an awkward and almost impracticable task to keep these\nkinds of reasoning far apart. The natural procedure of thought, is to\ncombine, rather than to dissever, when we marshal facts for the purpose\nof a full and wide generalization. Yet it does seem practicable to mark\nevery transition of thought distinctly; and, if clearly marked, the\ndistinction may easily be kept in mind.\n\nWith this precaution, it may appear allowable to treat Natural Theology\nin a more discursive manner than could otherwise be permitted. The\nobject of so doing will be to divest discussion as much as possible of\na dry, logical stiffness; and, by ranging round each topic[i] to look\nat it in various lights; a process which generally discovers both the\nweakness and the strength of reasoning. Any one who has read Plato will\nunderstand the advantage of Dialogue in this respect. A more familiar\nbook, Coleridge's \"Friend,\" is another apt illustration. Each of its\nseries of essays takes a sweep of the kind; and each \"landing-place\"\naffords a rest to the reader, and a fresh beginning to the intellectual\ntour. Without venturing to copy the quaint invention of landing-places,\nthe present writer intends making every Chapter the occasion of a\nfresh _start_. The separate trains of thought will thus proceed from\ndistinct points, and travel by separate routes, so as to admit of full\ninspection in their progress. Each argument allowed by the reader to be\nvalid, will finally link itself to its neighbours; and all thoughtful\npersons know how to estimate the strength of convergent conclusions.\n\nThe writer trusts, also, that he may be allowed to escape the two\nalternatives,--either circumlocution, or the use of an objectionable\npronoun _singular_, by employing the plural \"_we_.\" This word may\nperhaps have a further good effect; it may remind both reader and\nwriter that they are engaged as pilgrim-companions on a journey of\njoint exploration.\n\nAt the head of all their reasonings, Natural Theologians usually\nplace the celebrated argument from Design. It would be impossible, in\ndiscussing it, to reproduce here the many illustrative examples of\nDesign which have been collected. It would likewise be useless; partly,\nbecause they are all easily accessible and mostly well known; partly,\nbecause their appositeness as _illustrations_ is now fully admitted;\nand the controversy turns upon questions of another and more abstract\nkind. It is asked whether the analogy founded on these instances is\nrelevant?--whether it proves too little, or too much?--and, how far\nthe inferences drawn from such examples really go? Our plan will,\ntherefore, be to devote our second Chapter to the examination of\nsuch objections; to the review and elucidation of the argument from\nDesign. But if the reader wishes really to study the various questions\nclosely connected with this celebrated line of thought, and to view\nthe reasoning in a shape so complete as to be at once relevant and\nsatisfactory, he may be pleased to bestow a leisure hour on the\nconsecutive perusal of Chapters II., V., and VI., with their appended\nnotes and illustrations.\n\nThe _third_ Chapter is intended as a critical prop\u00e6deutic or foundation\nfor the constructive science of Natural Theology. So far as our\nexperience of men in great cities teaches anything with respect to the\nspeculative difficulties which keep them from God, it seems to teach\none undoubted fact. There is grounded in their minds a persuasion\n(underlying all further objections), that, whatever else we can know,\nlittle or nothing is to be learned concerning God. The idea of Theism\nis thus isolated from every other idea; and there is a presumption\nagainst all reasoning which in any way leads up to a determinate\nthought of the Divine Being or the Divine attributes.\n\nSome such doubters allege the necessary limitation of human knowledge\nin general:--\n\n    \"Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;\n    The proper study of mankind is man.\"\n\nBut, is not one chief object in knowing man, to acquaint ourselves with\nGod? In this spirit Quarles says:--\n\n    \"Man is man's A B C; there's none that can\n    Read God aright, unless he first spell man.\"\n\nWe may be perfectly sure that every human being, who (as Pope\ncontinues) hangs between the sceptic and the stoic,--\n\n    \"In doubt to deem himself a god or beast,\"\n\nwill never arrive at any knowledge of God whatsoever.\n\nOthers, again, who suppose mankind to know a great deal, conceive\nall special thought which transcends the every-day human circle, to\nbe encompassed by a number of difficulties exceptionally its own.\nIf, it is said, there are angelic natures, they must needs pity our\npoor attempts to survey _super_-human or _extra_-human spheres of\nexistence:--\n\n    \"Superior beings, when of late they saw\n    A mortal man unfold all nature's law,\n    Admir'd such wisdom in an earthly shape,\n    And show'd a Newton as we show an ape.\"[5]\n\nPope's cynicism has been lately re-echoed in various comparisons. A\ndeath-watch has been supposed to speculate on the final end of a clock;\na timepiece on the nature of its makers. Writers who use similitudes\nmay be asked to remember that if Man really possesses reason (to say\nnothing of an immortal spirit), he cannot be ranged in analogy with\napes, death-watches, and timepieces. The moment brute organisms, or\ninorganic constructions, are represented as _reasoning_, they cease to\nbe what they are--a Thing suddenly becomes a Person. If this were all,\nthe speech and faculties of Man would be represented as intact, though\nveiled beneath some shape worthy of the invention of a Babrias or an\n\u00c6sop. But this is not all. The monstrous shape is at once both Thing\nand Person, and its thinkings in this double character are supposed to\nshow by their grotesque failures the absurdity of our human endeavour\nto reason concerning God or Immortality.\n\nTo this whole kind of preoccupation the third Chapter is addressed.\nThere are really no special difficulties in the way of Theism. It\nargues from the known to the unknown; so do all the inductive sciences.\nIt accepts more than it can explain; so do we, each and all, in\naccepting the truth of our own individuality and personal identity,\nof the world outside us, and the mind within, which scrutinizes that\nchanging world. The more thoroughly questions relating to our first\nsources of knowledge are debated, the more surely shall we perceive how\nsafe is the starting-point of Natural Theology.\n\nAgainst Materialism, on the other hand, there may be urged a series\nof difficulties properly its own, and this may be most easily seen\nby placing it in contrast with pure Idealism. The Materialistic\nstarting-point is from an unauthorized postulate--in common parlance,\nan unfounded assumption; each step it takes is attended with a fresh\nneed of postulation, amounting at last to the gravest burden of\nimprobability. And when the materializing goal is reached we gain\nnothing--no treasure is discovered--no vista opened into new realms\nof intellectual or moral empire. We are only told that our supposed\ninsight was but a dream. We are only warned to dream no more.\nMaterialism has murdered insight.\n\nWith the argument of this Chapter there arises a very important\nquestion, which the reader is entreated to put to himself more than\nonce, and bestow upon it from time to time a pause of serious thought.\nIn a negative form the question runs thus: Since the difficulties\nsupposed to bar the _first_ march of Natural Theology are in no wise\npeculiar to it, but attach themselves equally to a multitude of our\ndaily grounds of thinking and acting, must we not, _if_, on account of\nsuch difficulties, we deny Natural Theism, also deny those persuasions\nof ordinary life? How else can we maintain our critical consistency?\nLet no man henceforward be confident that there exists an outward world\nof either men or things--let him not carelessly suppose that he has\neven an individual mind to speak of as his own--let all that concerns\n_other_ness--all that concerns _self_ness be relegated along with the\nDivine Being to the region of the Unknown and the Unknowable.\n\nBut we may imagine that, instead of denying these truths of common\nlife, many men will be hardy enough to affirm them. If so, in accepting\nthese they clearly accept a great deal more. To be consistent they must\naccept also the reasonable beliefs and first principles upon which\nreposes Theism.\n\nThe question thus put is therefore a dilemma or choice between two\nalternatives. And there may seem to remain no great doubt as to which\nalternative most practical reasoners will accept. This kind of dilemma\nwill recur at many several steps of our inquiry, but having been\nillustrated in one instance at considerable length, its examination\non other occasions may be safely left to the intelligence of the\nthoughtful reader.\n\nThe _four_ following chapters argue for the truth of Theism on\nfour several and independent grounds. These arguments are purely\nconstructive; and each is so far apart from the other three as to stand\nor fall upon its own merits. But, when each of these four arguments\nhas been separately examined, if admitted either wholly or in a\nmodified shape, their consilient and conjoint effect must be taken into\nconsideration[j].\n\nTo minimize impediments in the way of true knowledge; and to rise into\nclearness;--_these_ should be the hopes and aims of us all. Life is\nfull of foiled endeavours; but let us onward now with the hopeful!\n\n\nADDITIONAL NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER I.\n\n\nA.--THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE AND OTHERS ON MODERN SCEPTICISM.\n\n_Extract from Mr. Gladstone's Address delivered at the Liverpool\nCollegiate Institution, December 21st, 1872._\n\n\"It is not now only the Christian Church, or only the Holy Scripture,\nor only Christianity, which is attacked. The disposition is boldly\nproclaimed to deal alike with root and branch, and to snap utterly the\nties which, under the still venerable name of Religion, unite man with\nthe unseen world, and lighten the struggles and the woes of life by the\nhope of a better land.\n\n\"These things are done as the professed results and the newest\ntriumphs of Modern Thought and Modern Science; but I believe that\nneither Science nor Thought is responsible, any more than Liberty is\nresponsible, for the misdeeds committed in their names. Upon the ground\nof what is termed evolution, God is relieved of the labour of creation;\nin the name of unchangeable laws, He is discharged from governing the\nworld; and His function of judgment is also dispensed with, as justice\nand benevolence are held to forbid that men should hereafter be called\nto strict account for actions, which under these unchangeable laws\nthey may have committed. But these are only the initial stages of the\nprocess. Next we are introduced to the doctrine of the Absolute and\nthe Unconditioned; and under the authority of these phrases (to which,\nand many other phrases, in their proper places, I have no objection)\nwe are instructed that we can know nothing about God, and therefore\ncan have no practical relations with Him. One writer--or, as it is now\ntermed, thinker--announces with pleasure that he has found the means\nof reconciling Religion and Science. The mode is in principle most\nequitable. He divides the field of thought between them. To Science he\nawards all that of which we know, or may know, something; to Religion\nhe leaves a far wider domain,--that of which we know, and can know,\nnothing. This sounds like jest, but it is melancholy earnest; and I\ndoubt whether any such noxious crop has been gathered in such rank\nabundance from the press of England in any former year of our literary\nhistory as in this present year of our redemption, eighteen hundred and\nseventy-two.\" (pp. 22-3.)\n\nThe writer, or thinker, mentioned by Mr. Gladstone is thus described\nat the end of the address, p. 33:--\"My reference is to Mr. Herbert\nSpencer. See his 'First Principles,' and especially the chapter on\nthe 'Reconciliation of Science and Religion.' It is needless to cite\nparticular passages. It would be difficult to mistake its meaning, for\nit is written with great ability and clearness, as well as with every\nindication of sincerity. Still it vividly recalls to mind an old story\nof the man who, wishing to be rid of one who was in his house, said,\n'Sir, there are two sides to my house, and we will divide them; you\nshall take the outside.'\n\n\"I believe Mr. Spencer has been described in one of our daily journals\nas the first thinker of the age.\"\n\nTo some people the Premier will appear more than reasonably disturbed\nby the journal's description. There is (as we have remarked) a very\nadvanced type of the genus journalist in England, and its anonymous\nzealots are liberal in distributing titles of honour--that is, among\ntheir friends. _Per contra_, upon authors of Mr. Gladstone's calibre\nand lofty mode of thought they bestow epithets very much the reverse of\ncomplimentary. They seem, in fact, somewhat to resemble those critics\nof whom Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote, that \"though excellent fellows in\ntheir way, there are no gentlemen in the world less sensible of any\nsanctity in a book, or less likely to recognize an author's heart in\nit.\" So far, however, as Mr. Herbert Spencer is concerned, the journal\ncensured might observe in justification of its approval that his system\nseems a good deal read by the students of more than one school in our\nPremier's own University--a proud distinction shared by Mr. Spencer\nwith several other eminent thinkers of the same speculative tendencies\nas himself.\n\nThe eloquent speaker next passes under brief review two other typical\nbooks,--one by a German, the second by an Englishman. Respecting the\nopinions of the former author (Strauss[6]) Mr. Gladstone writes thus\n(Authentic Report, p. 24):--\"In his first chapter he puts the question,\n'Are we still Christians?' and, after a detailed examination, he\nconcludes, always speaking on behalf of Modern Thought, that if we\nwish our yea to be yea, and our nay nay, if we are to think and speak\nour thoughts as honourable, upright men, we must reply that we are\nChristians no longer. This question and answer, however, he observes,\nare insufficient. The essential and fundamental inquiry is, whether we\nare or are not still to have a Religion?\n\n\"To this inquiry he devotes his second chapter. In this second chapter\nhe finds that there is no personal God; there is no future state; the\ndead live in the recollection of survivors--this is enough for them.\nAfter this he has little difficulty in answering the question he has\nput. All religious worship ought to be abolished. The very name of\n'Divine Service' is an indignity to man. Therefore, in the sense in\nwhich religion has been heretofore understood, his answer is that\nwe ought to have no religion any more. But proceeding, as he always\ndoes, with commendable frankness, he admits that he ought to fill with\nsomething the void which he has made. This he accordingly proceeds to\ndo. Instead of God, he offers to us the All, or Universum. This All, or\nUniversum, possesses, he tells us, neither consciousness nor reason.\nBut it presents to us order and law. He thinks it fitted, therefore,\nto be the object of a new and true piety, which he claims for his\nUniversum, as the devout of the old style did for their God. If any one\nrepudiates this doctrine, to Dr. Strauss's reason the repudiation is\nabsurdity, and to his feelings blasphemy.\"[7]\n\nMany readers will agree with the Premier in calling these \"astonishing\nassertions.\" Many will also speak of Strauss's positions as something\nworse than astonishing when they read in the Illustrative Passages\n(Address, p. 34) a declaration which he holds it his duty as well as\nhis right to make without any kind of reserve.[8]\n\nMost persons will likewise agree with the Premier's further observation\n(p. 38):--\"I have made a statement that these ideas are not a mere\nGerman brood, though I fear that we owe much of their seed to Germany,\nas France owed to England the seed of her great Voltairian movement, so\nfar as it was a movement grounded in the region of thought.\"\n\nIn illustration of the statement that \"there are many writers of\nkindred sympathies in England, and some of as outspoken courage\"\n(Address, p. 26), Mr. Gladstone quotes four passages from Mr. Winwood\nReade's \"Martyrdom of Man.\" The three first cited possess a painful\ninterest for the Natural Theologian. They are as follows:--(1.) \"When\nthe faith in a personal God is extinguished; when prayer and praise are\nno longer to be heard; when the belief is universal that with the body\ndies the soul; then the false morals of theology will no longer lead\nthe human mind astray.\" (2.) \"We teach that the soul is immortal; we\nteach that there is a future life; we teach that there is a Heaven in\nthe ages far away: but not for us single corpuscles, not for us dots of\nanimated jelly, but for the One of whom we are the elements, and who,\nthough we perish, never dies.\" (3.) \"God is so great that He does not\ndeign to have personal relations with us human atoms that are called\nmen. Those who desire to worship their Creator must worship Him through\nmankind. Such, it is plain, is the scheme of Nature.\" (pp. 38-9.)\n\nOn account of his Address and _pi\u00e8ces justificatives_, Mr. Gladstone\nhas been already (like a prophet of old) \"wounded in the house of his\nfriends.\" It may therefore be well to support his judgment by some\nadditional testimony. Now the _Pall Mall Gazette_, whatever faults may\nbe imputed to it by its adversaries, cannot be justly charged with\nharshness or discourtesy towards materializing writers. And it so\nhappens that both Dr. Strauss and Mr. Reade have lately been criticised\nin its columns. From these notices, therefore, I shall venture on\nmaking some extracts.\n\nStrauss's \"Der Alte und der Neue Glaube\" was reviewed at considerable\nlength in the number for November 27, 1872. I quote two passages only.\n\nAfter an interesting introduction the reviewer proceeds thus:--\n\n\"As the title of the book indicates, the work to be effected divides\nitself into two main parts. First, it is necessary to settle the\nrelations to be adopted towards the old Church faith, or Christianity.\nThat accomplished, the outlines at least of the new views that take\nits place must be sketched out. Of course, before that can be done\nit must be settled whether or not there is anything to put in place\nof Christianity. It is logically correct to ask, first, whether\n'we'--meaning 'the thinking minority,' who have grown dissatisfied with\n'the old faith'--'are still Christians' in any sense. Having answered\nthat question in the negative, it is in order to ask next 'whether we\nhave any religion,'--which cannot be answered by a simple negative\nor affirmative, or without further explanations as to the nature of\nreligion. We must see 'how we regard the world,' or the system of\nexisting things; what results we are led to by modern researches as\nto its origin, purpose, and destiny. Although in the light that flows\nfrom these, Strauss maintains that the old idea of a personal God must\ndisappear, he finds a Divinity in the All or totality of nature, whose\nforces and course exhibit purpose or design--subjectively speaking--and\norder, and to which we are bound, recognizing the wisdom that regulates\nthem, piously to resign ourselves, seeking to fulfil that order of\nwhich we ourselves are a part.\" The following extract concludes the\nnotice:--\"We have seen that Strauss refuses to acknowledge Christianity\nbecause on examination its assertions appear to him incredible, and its\nclaims therefore inadmissible. That is the result of an examination\nof the nature of Christianity, in which we have nothing new, as it is\nsubstantially a synopsis of the fuller process of reasoning contained\nin 'The Life of Jesus.' But it is not Christianity alone that must be\ndispensed with. In accordance with the old declaration that miracles\nare impossible, the supernatural also disappears. It is not merely\nrelegated, as by Herbert Spencer and Comte, to the sphere of the\nUnknowable; it is not recognized in any manner whatsoever. In place of\ncreation, we have in these pages a process of continuous development\nthrough immense periods of time; instead of God, as the source of law\nand authority and order, nature proceeding harmoniously in an unending\nprocess; instead of individual immortality, the conclusion that every\nindividual fulfils his destiny in this world. The divinities and the\nafter life of man are, as with Feuerbach, declared to be simply his\nown desires. 'What man might be but is not, he makes his god; what he\nmight possess but cannot win for himself, that shall his god bestow\nupon him.' In reference to the argument that man must somewhere\nrealize all the possibilities that are in him, and as he does not do\nso in this life there must be a future one, Strauss asks whether all\nseeds in nature come to maturity. Having dispensed, then, with the\nsupernatural, are we necessarily without any religion? We have seen\nthat Strauss answers in the negative, though not very confidently.\nThe fundamental views on human life, the existence of the world, and\nso forth, are without doubt a religion, or the theoretical side of\none. If in order to a religion it be necessary to believe that the\nuniverse fulfils a rational purpose through a rational order, we\nhave that presented to us. There is constant process and continuous\ndevelopment. There is an ascent, as it were, of the forces of nature\nwhich perform their mighty cycles through the ages, and a consequent\ndescent and vanishing away. The All remains ever the same, is at no\nmoment more complete than in the preceding, nor _vice vers\u00e2_, but there\nis a process of becoming and disappearing which goes on, or may go on\n_ad infinitum_. The design or purpose of every part is being fulfilled\nat every moment, for at every moment there is the richest possible\nunfolding of life in the total system of things. The highest idea to\nwhich we can attain is that of the universe.\n\n\"Many people were scandalized when a few years ago Mr. Mill maintained\nthat the idea of a God was not indispensable to a religion. Comte's\n'Religion of Humanity' was then in view. Strauss's religion, though\nequally without a God, is deformed by no such crudities of thought\nand feeling as Comte's. Rather is his book a representation in brief\ncompass of the views to which, whether we regret it or not, the\nmajority of educated and thinking men are in our day more and more\nattracted.\"\n\nOne remarkable circumstance dwelt upon in this notice, as well as\nin Mr. Gladstone's Address, is that Strauss, like Comte, finds a\nsubstitute for the worship of a Deity--a something which both are\npleased to call a Religion. Strauss takes the theoretical, Comte the\nsentimental view. According to the Frenchman, men are to worship\n\"Humanity\" with a leaning to the female side. The un-deformed\nreligion of the German centres upon an Optimistic theory of the All\nor Universum.[9] Both would seem practically to confess the real\nnecessity of some Religion to mankind, and the question naturally\noccurs whether these _succedanea_ are more wholesome and elevating than\nTheism, or whether (it may be added) they are as likely to be true\nafter all.\n\nMr. Winwood Reade's \"Martyrdom of Man\" had been criticised four days\nearlier (_Pall Mall Gazette_, Nov. 23). As he is an English writer, I\ntake the liberty of making more copious extracts, but would recommend\nsuch of my readers as have not perused the article to bestow half an\nhour's steady thought upon it.\n\n\"Mr. Reade,\" writes the critic, \"puts forth his book as a sort of\nreview, or survey, or abridgement of the general history of the human\nrace, and he has given to it the strange title it bears because he is\nof opinion that 'the supreme and mysterious Power by whom the universe\nhas been created, and by whom it has been appointed to run its course\nunder fixed and invariable law; that awful One to whom it is profanity\nto pray, of whom it is idle and irreverent to argue and debate, of\nwhom we should never presume to think save with humility and awe; that\nUnknown God has ordained that mankind should be elevated by misfortune,\nand that happiness should grow out of misery and pain.' But, although\nthe work is in the main historical, it is also partly cosmological,\npartly physiological, and partly polemical. It deals with the past, the\npresent, and the future of the world as well as of humanity....\n\n\"In what he has to say on the present occasion Mr. Reade lays no\nclaim to originality. On the contrary, he warns us that he has\nborrowed, 'not only facts and ideas, but phrases and even paragraphs\nfrom other writers.' The purpose he has in view is to illustrate the\ninvestigations and enforce the conclusions within a moderate compass\nof higher and more voluminous authorities. But still there is quite\nenough of his own handiwork in the volume to entitle him to be regarded\nas far more than a mere compiler; and we venture to think that many\nreaders will find those portions of it which are the fruits of Mr.\nReade's personal experience as an African explorer, and his reflections\nupon that which he has himself seen, among the most interesting and\ninstructive of all.\n\n\"In the writings of Mr. Darwin, Mr. Mill, Dr. Draper, and Mr. Herbert\nSpencer, the authors to whom Mr. Reade seems to be chiefly indebted,\nthe assumed antagonism between the conclusions of modern science and\nthe premisses of popular theology is latent rather than manifest. With\nthem it is left as a matter of inference, and is nowhere forced upon\nthe attention as a matter of fact. Mr. Reade endeavours to supply\nthis deficiency, and he does so distinctly and abruptly enough....\nIn order to build we must destroy. Not only the Syrian superstition\nmust be attacked, but the belief in a 'personal God,' which engenders\na slavish and oriental condition of the mind, and the belief in a\nposthumous reward which engenders a selfish and solitary condition\nof the heart.... What Mr. Reade is pleased to designate 'the Syrian\nsuperstition' is still the direct or indirect source of all the really\npractical sympathy existing both between the higher and lower classes\nof society and the higher and lower races of mankind. As to the belief\nin a personal God, the passage we have quoted above from Mr. Reade\nseems to show that he shares it, or the language he uses is mere\nnonsense. It would be absurd to talk about anything except a personal\nGod creating the universe, appointing fixed and invariable laws, and\nordaining the destiny of mankind. And if Mr. Reade is referring merely\nto force collectively or in the abstract, we cannot perceive why it\n'should be idle and irreverent to argue and debate about' it, or why\n'we should never presume to think, save with humility and awe' about\nit, more than about its particular and concrete manifestations; for\ninstance, light, heat, or electricity. Moreover, if we admit that the\nuniverse is in any sense the work of a supreme and mysterious Power who\nhas in any sense predestined an unalterable course for it to run, we\ncannot understand how such a belief is fitted to remove the 'slavish\nand oriental condition of mind' of which Mr. Reade complains. We should\nhave thought rather that the unmitigated fatalism it implies would be\nfar likelier to generate such an intellectual state than reliance on\nprovidential superintendence and interposition carried to no matter\nwhat extravagant lengths. Mr. Reade's proposition that the belief in\na posthumous reward engenders a selfish and solitary condition of the\nheart appears to us likewise wide of the mark. As long as we continue\nto be individual beings, our conduct will continue to be the result of\nour individual feelings, present or anticipated. Practically, at all\nevents, the Stoic, the Sadducee, and the Christian equally will fulfil\ninstead of neglecting their duty--first, because they are conscious\nthat it is their duty, and secondly, because they know that fulfilling\nit will bring them satisfaction, and that to neglect it will bring them\nremorse. The only difference is that the Christian trusts that his\nsatisfaction in the one case, and fears that his remorse in the other\ncase, will be infinitely prolonged.\"\n\nMr. Reade's reviewer concludes his critique with a piece of wit from\nVoltaire, which he views as enunciating a pretty fair summary of the\nmoral contained in the \"Martyrdom of Man.\" Voltaire compares the\nCreator of the world to the builder of a great house, and men to the\nmice who inhabit its chinks and crannies. The Divine builder has not\nenlightened us mice. This comparison has often since been repeated in\nnew and improved shapes by sceptical moderns, who treat a considerate\nDeath-watch as a typical thinker on problems of reason, such as Design\nand Final Causation.\n\nAs author of a Lecture on Positivism in 1871, I cannot but be gratified\nto perceive that Mr. Gladstone's views of Comte's character and system\nare coincident with my own. (Authentic Report, pp. 25 and 36.)\n\nThis note began with extracts furnished by one Premier--it may not\ninaptly close with quotations from the writings of another.\n\nMr. Disraeli, in his preface to the new edition of \"Lothair,\" expresses\nhimself as follows (p. xv., seq.):--\n\n\"It cannot be denied that the aspect of the world and this country, to\nthose who have faith in the spiritual nature of man, is at this time\ndark and distressful. They listen to doubts, and even denials, of an\nactive Providence; what is styled Materialism is in the ascendant.\nTo those who believe that an atheistical society, though it may be\npolished and amiable, involves the seeds of anarchy, the prospect is\nfull of gloom.\n\n\"This disturbance in the mind of nations has been occasioned by two\ncauses: firstly, by the powerful assault on the divinity of the Semitic\nliterature by the Germans; and, secondly, by recent discoveries of\nscience, which are hastily supposed to be inconsistent with our\nlong-received convictions as to the relations between the Creator and\nthe created.\"\n\nOn the first cause of disturbance, Mr. Disraeli continues:--\"Man brings\nto the study of the oracles more learning and more criticism than of\nyore: and it is well that it should be so. The documents will yet bear\na greater amount both of erudition and examination than they have\nreceived; but the word of God is eternal, and will survive the spheres.\"\n\nOn the second, he observes:--\"Scientific, like spiritual truth, has\never from the beginning been descending from Heaven to man. He is a\nbeing who organically demands direct relations with his Creator, and\nhe would not have been so organised if his requirements could not be\nsatisfied. We may analyse the sun and penetrate the stars, but man is\nconscious that he is made in God's own image, and in his perplexity he\nwill ever appeal to 'our Father which art in Heaven.'\"\n\nBoth these sources of doubt and denial have been exemplified in the\npreceding note. I might indeed have hesitated to exemplify them so\nfully were it not for the considerations mentioned in my preface to\nthis essay.\n\n\nB.--ON CORRUPTION OF THE JUDGMENT BY MISDIRECTED MORAL SENTIMENTS.\n\nTalfourd--then Mr. Serjeant Talfourd--thus describes what passed in his\nown mind when viewing the site of Gibbon's abode at Lausanne:--\"That\ngarden in which the Historian took his evening walk, after writing the\nlast lines of the work to which many years had been devoted;--a walk\nwhich alone would have hallowed the spot, if, alas! there had not been\nthose intimations in the work itself of a purpose which, tending to\ndesecrate the world, must deprive all associations attendant on its\naccomplishment of a claim to be dwelt on as holy! How melancholy is\nit to feel that intellectual congratulation which attends the serene\ntriumph of a life of studious toil chilled by the consciousness that\nthe labour, the research, the Asiatic splendour of illustration,\nhave been devoted, in part at least, to obtain a wicked end--not in\nthe headlong wantonness of youth, or the wild sportiveness of animal\nspirits, but urged by the deliberate, hearted purpose of crushing\nthe light of human hope--all that is worth living for, and all that\nis worth dying for--and substituting for them nothing but a rayless\nscepticism. That evening walk is an awful thing to meditate on; the\nwalk of a man of rare capacities, tending to his own physical decline,\namong the serenities of loveliest nature, enjoying the thought that,\nin the chief work of his life, just accomplished, he had embodied a\nhatred to the doctrines which teach men to love one another, to forgive\ninjuries, and to hope for a diviner life beyond the grave; and exulting\nin the conviction that this work would survive to teach its deadly\nlesson to young ingenuous students, when he should be dust. One may\nderive consolation from reflecting that the style is too meretricious,\nand the attempt too elaborate and too subtle, to achieve the proposed\nevil; and in hoping that there were some passages in the secret history\nof the author's heart, which may extenuate its melancholy error; but\nour personal veneration for successful toil is destroyed in the sense\nof the strange malignity which blended with its impulses, and we feel\nno desire to linger over the spot where so painful a contradiction is\npresented as a charm.\"--_Vacation Rambles._ Ed. 2, p. 238.\n\nWe may gladly give Gibbon the benefit of the doubt with which the great\njudge closes. But surely most attempts to address the mental state\ndepicted must needs be found impotent. There is great force in a dictum\nof Schelling's (\"Idealismus der Wissenschaftslehre\") to the following\neffect--\"The medium by which spirits understand each other is not the\nambient air, but the deep-stirred sympathetic vibrations propagated\nby a community of spiritual freedom. When a soul is not pervaded by\nthis atmosphere of conscious freedom, all inward communion with self\nor with another is broken,--what wonder, then, if such a one remain\nunintelligible to himself and to others, and in his fearful wilderness\nof spirit wearies himself by idle words, to which no friendly echo\nresponds, either from his own or from another's breast?\n\n\"To remain unintelligible to such an one is glory and honour before\nGod and man. _Barbarus huic ego sim, nec tali intelligar ulli._ This,\"\nconcludes Schelling, \"is a wish and prayer from which no man can keep\nhimself.\"--_S\u00e4mmtliche Werke_, I. 443.\n\n\nC.--ON SPECIAL PLEADING IN HISTORY AND MORALS.\n\nA few emphatic sentences from Lord Macaulay's strictures on\nhistorical special pleading will repay perusal:--\"This species of\nmisrepresentation abounds in the most valuable works of modern\nhistorians. Herodotus tells his story like a slovenly witness,\nwho, heated by partialities and prejudices, unacquainted with the\nestablished rules of evidence, and uninstructed as to the obligations\nof his oath, confounds what he imagines with what he has seen and\nheard, and brings out facts, reports, conjectures, and fancies in\none mass. Hume is an accomplished advocate. Without positively\nasserting much more than he can prove, he gives prominence to all the\ncircumstances which support his case; he glides lightly over those\nwhich are unfavourable to it; his own witnesses are applauded and\nencouraged; the statements which seem to throw discredit on them are\ncontroverted; the contradictions into which they fall are explained\naway; a clear and connected abstract of their evidence is given.\nEverything that is offered on the other side is scrutinised with the\nutmost severity; every suspicious circumstance is a ground for comment\nand invective; what cannot be denied is extenuated, or passed by\nwithout notice; concessions even are sometimes made; but this insidious\ncandour only increases the effect of the vast mass of sophistry.\n\n\"We have mentioned Hume as the ablest and most popular writer of his\nclass; but the charge which we have brought against him is one to which\nall our most distinguished historians are in some degree obnoxious.\nGibbon, in particular, deserves very severe censure.\"--_Macaulay's\nMiscellaneous Writings--History._\n\nThe reader may very advantageously carry along with him the above\nquoted just remarks, if he has occasion to travel into Hume's sceptical\nwritings. Respecting these, where every feature of the author's\ncharacter appears with intensified distinctness of expression, it is\nnot too much to say that their influence, which had suffered suspended\nanimation,[10] is now felt in almost every cultivated circle in Europe.\nChecked for a time under the empire of Kant and his successors, it has\nbeen revived by the German Darwinists (so-called), who are bent on\nevolving all that can be got from the theory of Evolution. Comte speaks\nof Hume as his own master--an intellectual debt all the more readily\nacknowledged, because Hume's treatment of most subjects leans towards\nthe French, rather than the Teutonic, side of English speculation. The\nmaster's influence over numbers who, without being Comte's disciples,\nare addicted to thinking Positively upon questions connected with Mind\nand Morality, was never greater than at present.\n\nHere, therefore, the disciplined inquirer will obtain a prolific field\nof discovery, if he wishes to convince himself how little originality\npervades the set of opinions just now in fashion.\n\nBut the student of Hume ought surely to be a disciplined inquirer.\nMany senior residents at our Universities will, therefore, join me in\nregretting that his sceptical treatises should be so commonly found in\nthe hands of very young men. So far as such readers are concerned, it\ndoes not much signify whether Hume's fallacies are due to onesidedness\nof intellect or (as has been said by a critic, once himself a doubter)\nwhether he was influenced \"by vanity, appetite, and the ambition of\nforming a sect of _arguescents_.\" An opinion scarcely libellous,\nconsidering what Hume has said respecting the validity of his own\nparadoxes. However this may appear, the fallacies remain fallacies,\nand are less easy of detection than they would have been were their\nauthor a systematic thinker, instead of a philosophical _dilletante_.\nUnder any circumstances, it is not every aspirant to the \"Round Table\"\nfor whom the quest after secret spells is fitted. The youthful knight\nhas his own ward to keep, and needs help--not hindrance, much less\nbetrayal--inasmuch as:--\n\n    \"Tis his to struggle with that perilous age\n    Which claims for manhood's vice the privilege\n    Of boyhood;--when young Dionysus seems\n    All glorious as he burst upon the east,\n    A jocund and a welcome conqueror;\n    And Aphrodite, sweet as from the sea\n    She rose and floated in her pearly shell,\n    A laughing girl;--when lawless will erects\n    Honour's gay temple on the mount of God,\n    And meek obedience bears the coward's brand;\n    While Satan, in celestial panoply,\n    With Sin, his lady, smiling by his side,\n    Defies all heaven to arms!\"\n\n    _Hartley Coleridge's Poems_, Vol. II., p. 202.\n\n\nD.--ON THE METHOD EMPLOYED IN THIS ESSAY.\n\nThe advantages which ensue from this mode of \"ranging round each\ntopic\" are well described by the late Sir B. Brodie (Psychological\nInquiries, 1st series, p. 18). \"Our minds are so constructed that we\ncan keep the attention fixed on a particular object until we have,\nas it were, looked all around it; and the mind that possesses this\nfaculty in the greatest degree of perfection will take cognisance of\nrelations of which another mind has no perception. It is this, much\nmore than any difference in the abstract power of reasoning, which\nconstitutes the vast difference which exists between the minds of\ndifferent individuals; which distinguishes the far-sighted statesman\nfrom the shallow politician; the sagacious and accomplished general\nfrom the mere disciplinarian. Such also is the history, not only of the\npoetic genius, but also of the genius of discovery in science. 'I keep\nthe subject,' said Sir Isaac Newton, 'constantly before me, and wait\nuntil the first dawnings open by little and little into a full light.'\nIt was thus that, after long meditation, he was led to the invention\nof fluxions, and to the anticipation of the modern discovery of the\ncombustibility of the diamond. It was thus that Harvey discovered the\ncirculation of the blood; and that those views were suggested to Davy,\nwhich are propounded in the Bakerian lecture of 1806, and which laid\nthe foundation of that grand series of experimental researches which\nterminated in the decomposition of the earths and alkalies.\"\n\nDr. Tyndall also considers the case of Newton (\"Fragments of Science,\"\np. 60). \"Newton pondered all these things. He had a great power of\npondering. He could look into the darkest subject until it became\nentirely luminous. How this light arises we cannot explain; but, as\na matter of fact, it does arise.\" Dr. Tyndall had before remarked\non the question thus suggested, that \"There is much in this process\nof pondering and its results which it is impossible to analyse. It\nis by a kind of inspiration that we rise from the wise and sedulous\ncontemplation of facts to the principles on which they depend. The\nmind is, as it were, a photographic plate, which is gradually cleansed\nby the effort to think rightly, and which when so cleansed, and not\nbefore, receives impressions from the light of truth. This passage from\nfacts to principles is called induction, which in its highest form is\ninspiration; but, to make it sure, the inward sight must be shown to be\nin accordance with outward fact. To prove or disprove the induction, we\nmust resort to deduction and experiment.\"--Ibid, p. 57-8.\n\nThis last remark concerns the process of verification which the\naccomplished writer discusses through several subsequent pages.\n\nNotwithstanding a passing observation of Dr. Tyndall's that \"this\npower of pondering facts is one with which the ancients could be but\nimperfectly acquainted,\" some readers will be struck by the thought\nthat it forms the nearest approach which can be made by any inductive\ndiscoverer to the old philosophical method of Dialectic. Janet says, in\na volume to which those who have not encountered it will thank me for\nintroducing them, \"La dialectique logique dans Platon est parfaitement\nconforme aux lois de la raison. Elle ne sert qu'\u00e0 r\u00e9futer les id\u00e9es\nfausses, ou \u00e0 \u00e9claircir les id\u00e9es donn\u00e9es ant\u00e9rieurement par une\nsorte de synth\u00e8se, qui, suivant les uns, n'est que le progr\u00e8s de la\ng\u00e9n\u00e9ralisation, et, selon nous, est le progr\u00e8s de l'intuition.\" (\u00c9tudes\nsur la Dialectique dans Platon et dans Hegel, p. 393.) For a more\ncomplete appreciation of what is here stated in few words, the student\nshould peruse pp. 244, seq. The account given by Janet appears in some\nmeasure to coincide with Dr. Tyndall's idea, though perhaps the word\n\"Intuition\" might be more entirely approved by Schelling or Coleridge\nthan by any Physicist.\n\nBe this as it may, Dr. Tyndall's outline of the Inductive process in\nits highest form is evidently one which describes the prerogative of\nGenius--the exercise of Imagination as distinguished from Fancy--the\nchild, that is, of Reason, rather than a stray bantling of sportive wit.\n\nTo bring his general conception within the grasp of every-day workers,\nand describe a procedure which may be adopted as a kind of practical\nrule or maxim, let us look at this subject in the following manner.\n\nSuppose we take the example of a great idea; that, for instance, of\nthe constitution of Great Britain, or any other nation which subsists\nin tolerable freedom from revolutionary change. There are clearly two\nelements involved--one, Permanence; the other, Progress. These, in the\nactual working constitution, form its factors, or moments (as they may\nbe better termed); and in the idea or mental representation of the\nsame, we may liken them to complementary colours in the spectrum, which\nappear separately contrasted in tint, but blend together in a wave of\nwhite light. Now, our analysing faculty of mind is, in point of fact,\nour intellectual prism. It separates each bright and strong idea into\nelements so antagonistic as to be apparently incompatible. Like clear\nyellow and shadowy violet, one component seems excellent in beauty,\nanother its foil or opposite. To one class of minds truth consists\nin Permanence, and Progress is a note of evil omen. Of another class\nthe contradictory is true. The real statesman alone knows that their\nblending is a question of measure and degree, of human affairs,--time,\ncircumstance, and opportunity.\n\nWe may ask with reason what gain accrues to the statesman by looking\nat his country's constitution from this point of sight? Evidently a\ngood deal. He will soon discern that practically it cannot exist in\nvigour if either factor be eliminated. Each is given in the analysis\nof his prolific idea, and, however great may seem the apparent\nincompatibility, both must be capable of co-existence and correlation.\nNow, there could be no synthesis if, on the one hand, Progress did not\nimply a something which remains identical and in unity with itself,\nwhile it flourishes and grows;--or, on the other hand, if Permanence\nwere not safest, when its strength is manifested by its vital increase.\nConsequently, to grow is to continue essentially the same;--to be\npermanent is to live and bear fresh fruit every passing year.\n\nA precisely similar advantage accrues to the Ethical Philosopher from a\nprocess of the like description. He considers (it may be) the concrete\nidea of moral activity. Obviously, there must be found in it an\nunfettered power of choice, and a conformity to the rule of moral law.\nSubmitted to the analytic prism, the two elements come out at opposite\npoles in very decided contrast. At the pole of necessary conformity\nwe find what looks like Determinism;--at the pole of choice appears\nits irreconcilable antagonist, a sense of Responsibility, logically\nunexplained, but inalienable from our moral nature. And our Ethical\ninquirer finds the only possible synthesis of his two contrasted\nmoments of morality in the deep truth that each righteous man is a Law\nunto himself. And hence it is, that the righteous shines out over the\nlower world of mechanical arrangement--a faint, it may be, but still a\nvisible image of the God who made him what he is.[11]\n\nBy the same process of analysis and reconstruction the Natural\nTheologian arrives (as may be shown) at a synthesis of Faith and\nReason. Yet these two are antagonistic in the eyes both of the sceptic\nand the superstitious. _Les extr\u00eames se touchent_, and by both extremes\nfaith is relegated to the region of sentimental \u00e6sthetics.\n\nReason, say both, is Faith's natural enemy; and must fail to yield\nany expectation of future happiness in the presence of a righteous\nGod, together with its long train of present hopes and fears. Our\nplain answer is that the true synthesis of Natural Theism lies in\nthe chief primary fact of our human nature--the undeniable existence\nof its Reasonable Beliefs. They originate deep down, and we may\naffirm respecting the birth of each and all, as Dr. Tyndall affirms\nof the inward vision which dawns upon the philosophic mind when\nphotographically cleansed by its own efforts to think rightly,--\"how\nthis light arises we cannot explain, but as a matter of fact it does\narise.\" In its degree it may be (to use Dr. Tyndall's word) \"a kind\nof inspiration.\" And what endowment has a higher claim to such a\nrepresentative kinship?--what nobler gift can be conceived from God\nto man than a Belief of Reason? Dr. Tyndall's further requirement\nthat \"the inward sight must be shown to be in accordance with the\noutward fact,\" a Natural Theologian may hope to meet by a sufficient\nverification. He may meet it in the case of this particular Belief by\nshowing, as we shall try to show, our actual human experience of its\nworking and its worth.\n\nWe might pursue similar examples through the regions of Discovery\nand Production, but the three instances already adduced may fairly\nsuffice. It is, perhaps, more interesting to observe the real gains\nwhich accrue from pondering over an idea in the manner exemplified.\nHow much political _charlatanerie_ is at once disposed of when men\ndistinctly acknowledge that two reputed incompatibilities, however\nuseful as war-cries, are essentially conjoint elements in all truly\nstatesmanlike action: what countless angry controversies die in the\nmoral principle that each righteous man is a Law unto himself! And not\nonly to Natural Theology, but to other parts of knowledge, it is of the\ngreatest utility to perceive with equal distinctness that Reason has\nits beliefs as well as Unreason; and that when we accept reasonable\nbeliefs as the basis of scientific investigation, we affirm their value\nfor the conduct and government of life. The true amount of that value\nas a mainspring of our hopeful activities is estimated on another page.\nMeantime, we may remark from the three examples above discussed, how\nregularly an idea of Reason, analysed into its complementary factors,\nresumes a concrete form when we employ it as a maxim of practical\nlife. The politician who separates progress from stability is really\npreparing his country for revolution. The man on whose heart the law\nis not written (like the necessity laid upon St. Paul[12]) is as yet\nimperfectly righteous. And so too, if in our Beliefs we lose sight of\nthe gift that makes us human, we are likely to ring the changes between\nsuperstition, atheism, and effeminate sentimentality.\n\nWhen, from results, we pass to the easiest method for attaining them,\nthere seems but little to add to the extracts with which this note\ncommenced. And if the object be clearly defined, the labour of the\nmental workshop need not be a severe discouragement. It is true that no\nman can take his Thought--the offspring of his inward Light--pull it to\npieces, and reconstruct it, as he would deal with a thing of brass or\niron. But every earnest ponderer may keep his prolific idea steadily in\nview, and hold conversations with himself respecting it. This is the\nwell-known method by which Aristotle virtually obtains his conclusions\nbefore he finally proceeds to deduce them. From the same conception of\nMethod, real thinking appears to Plato as a Dialogue without speech.\nAnd, doubtless, actual discussion between two or more living men would\nbe the surest way of arriving at the goal of insight, provided those\nmost uncommon of all endowments, common sense and common honesty, could\nbe assured to the dialecticians.[13]\n\nThus much, then, may serve as an illustration of the task we are\nattempting, and of the means by which we hope to accomplish it.\nIf achieved, it will form a contribution to the great work thus\ncharacterised by the Rector of Lincoln College from the University\npulpit, as reported in the _Oxford Undergraduates' Journal_ for October\n26, 1871: \"The Natural Theology of the last century is no longer\nfound to be satisfactory in presence of the geological and biological\nsciences as they now stand. The answer that the sciences are wrong\nand the theologians are right does not admit of being discussed or\nrefuted, for it is the answer of ignorance. The answer of the Catholic\nChurch, which is to take refuge in its own authority, can only be\npractically tendered where there is an infallible living authority, as\nin the chair of S. Peter. It seems to be the business of the English\nChurch especially--a Church which has never yet broken with reason or\nproscribed education--to fairly face these questions, to resume the\nNatural Theology of the past age, and to re-establish the synthesis of\nScience and Faith.\"\n\n\nE.--ON THE EFFECT OF CONSILIENT PROOFS.\n\nThe expressive word \"_Consilience_\" has been adopted on the authority\nof Dr. Whewell and Professor Pritchard, both of whom employ it in\npreference to the commoner expression _convergence_. Upon the force of\nconsilient proofs, Dr. Whewell writes thus:--\n\n\"The cases in which inductions from classes of facts altogether\ndifferent have _jumped together_, belong only to the best established\ntheories which the history of science contains. And as I shall have\noccasion to refer to this peculiar feature in their evidence, I will\ntake the liberty of describing it by a particular phrase, and will term\nit the _Consilience of Inductions_.\n\n\"It is exemplified principally in some of the greatest discoveries.\nThus it was found by Newton that the doctrine of the attraction of the\nsun varying according to the inverse square of the distance, which\nexplained Kepler's _Third Law_ of the proportionality of the cubes of\nthe distances to the squares of the periodic times of the planets,\nexplained also his _First_ and _Second Laws_ of the elliptical motion\nof each planet; although no connexion of these laws had been visible\nbefore. Again, it appeared that the force of universal gravitation,\nwhich had been inferred from the _perturbations_ of the moon and\nplanets by the sun and by each other, also accounted for the fact,\napparently altogether dissimilar and remote, of the _precession of the\nequinoxes_. Here was a most striking and surprising coincidence, which\ngave to the theory a stamp of truth beyond the power of ingenuity to\ncounterfeit....\n\n... The theory of universal gravitation, and of the undulatory\ntheory of light, are indeed full of examples of this consilience of\ninductions. With regard to the latter, it has been justly asserted by\nHerschel, that the history of the undulatory theory was a succession\nof _felicities_. And it is precisely the unexpected coincidences of\nresults drawn from distant parts of the subject which are properly thus\ndescribed.\" (\"Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences,\" B. XI., chap. v.,\ns. 3.)\n\nAnd again, \"It is true, the explanation of one set of facts may be\nof the same nature as the explanation of the other class; but then,\nthat the cause explains _both_ classes, gives it a very different\nclaim upon our attention and assent from that which it would have\nif it explained one class only. The very circumstance that the two\nexplanations coincide, is a most weighty presumption in their favour.\nIt is the testimony of two witnesses in behalf of the hypothesis; and\nin proportion as these two witnesses are separate and independent,\nthe conviction produced by their agreement is more and more complete.\nWhen the explanation of two kinds of phenomena, distinct, and not\napparently connected, leads us to the same cause, such a coincidence\ndoes give a reality to the cause, which it has not while it merely\naccounts for those appearances which suggested the supposition. This\ncoincidence of propositions inferred from separate classes of facts, is\nexactly what we noticed in the last book, as one of the most decisive\ncharacteristics of a true theory, under the name of _Consilience of\nInductions_.\n\n\"That Newton's first rule of philosophizing, so understood, authorizes\nthe inferences which he himself made, is really the ground on which\nthey are so firmly believed by philosophers. Thus, when the doctrine\nof a gravity varying inversely as the square of the distance from\nthe body, accounted at the same time for the relations of times and\ndistances in the planetary orbits and for the amount of the moon's\ndeflection from the tangent of her orbit, such a doctrine became most\nconvincing: or, again, when the doctrine of the universal gravitation\nof all parts of matter, which explained so admirably the inequalities\nof the moon's motions, also gave a satisfactory account of a phenomenon\nutterly different--the precession of the equinoxes. And of the same\nkind is the evidence in favour of the undulatory theory of light, when\nthe assumption of the length of an undulation, to which we are led by\nthe colours of thin plates, is found to be identical with that length\nwhich explains the phenomena of diffraction; or when the hypothesis of\ntransverse vibrations, suggested by the facts of polarization, explains\nalso the laws of double refraction. When such a convergence of two\ntrains of induction points to the same spot, we can no longer suspect\nthat we are wrong. Such an accumulation of proof really persuades us\nthat we have to do with a _vera causa_. And if this kind of proof be\nmultiplied,--if we again find other facts of a sort uncontemplated in\nframing our hypothesis, but yet clearly accounted for when we have\nadopted the supposition,--we are still further confirmed in our belief,\nand by such accumulation of proof we may be so far satisfied as to\nbelieve without conceiving it possible to doubt. In this case, when the\nvalidity of the opinion adopted by us has been repeatedly confirmed by\nits sufficiency in unforeseen cases, so that all doubt is removed and\nforgotten, the theoretical cause takes its place among the realities of\nthe world, and becomes _a true cause_.\" (Ibid. B. XII., chap. xiii.,\nart. 10.)\n\nThe reader of this Essay will be pleased to remark as he proceeds that\nits argument is made up of a diversity of proofs (very many among them\nbeing inductive), and that they all lend each other mutual support and\nbecome consilient at last.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[a] The language of this paragraph is the language of ordinary\nlife. In Coleridge's \"Table Talk,\" for example, the subject of\nMan's distinguishing prerogative of Immortality is discussed by the\ngreat speaker, and his nephew's note of the discussion is headed\n\"Materialism.\" There appears, indeed, considerable difficulty in\nfinding a precise expression for the form of belief, or unbelief,\ncommonly called Materialism. Most people speak of it as of some clear\nand well-defined theory until they begin seriously to investigate\nits _rationale_. Investigators are then apt to become loud in their\ncomplaints of its inexactness. Take by way of instance the following\nexample. Speaking of \"the doctrines of Materialism,\" Lord Brougham\nremarks: \"The vague and indistinct form of the propositions in which\nthey are conveyed affords one strong argument against their truth.\nIt is not easy to annex a definite meaning to the proposition that\nmind is inseparably connected with a particular arrangement of the\nparticles of matter; it is more difficult to say what they mean who\ncall it a modification of matter; but to consider it as consisting in\na combination of matter, as coming into existence the instant that\nthe particles of matter assume a given arrangement, appears to be a\nwholly unintelligible collocation of words.\"--(_Discourse of Natural\nTheology_, p. 102).\n\nUnder such circumstances it may seem difficult for many a Materialist\nto describe himself as the adherent of a distinct or closely reasoned\nsystem. The main point we would submit for his earnest consideration\nis the question whether his hypothesis lands him in certain subtle\nrefinements concerning the nature and connection of Force, Mind, and\nthose generalized facts which have been called the primary properties\nof Matter,--or whether it leads him onward to the opinions described in\nthe text. Looking at the subject in this light, we might feel inclined\nto draw a broad distinction between mere scientific Materialism and the\nMaterialistic doctrines of sceptical philosophy.\n\n[b] \"I doubt,\" said Mr. Gladstone at Liverpool on December 21,\n1872,--\"I doubt whether any such noxious crop has been gathered in such\nrank abundance from the press of England in any former year of our\nliterary history as in this present year of our redemption, eighteen\nhundred and seventy-two.\" The Premier had before remarked: \"I believe\nthat neither Science nor Thought is responsible, any more than Liberty\nis responsible, for the misdeeds committed in their names.\"\n\nThe passage from which these brief extracts are made is given at\ngreater length in the additional note to this Section (A).\n\n[c] Since writing the above, my attention has been called to Paley's\ncensure of the \"disingenuous _form_\" under which Scepticism was placed\nbefore the public in his day. He says (_Moral Philosophy_, B. v. Sect.\n9): \"Infidelity is served up in every shape that is likely to allure,\nsurprise, or beguile the imagination; in a fable, a tale, a novel, a\npoem; in interspersed and broken hints, remote and oblique surmises;\nin books of travels, of philosophy, of natural history; in a word, in\nany form rather than the right one,--that of a professed and regular\ndisquisition. And because the coarse buffoonery and broad laugh of the\nold and rude adversaries of the Christian faith would offend the taste,\nperhaps, rather than the virtue of this cultivated age, a graver irony,\na more skilful and delicate banter, is substituted in their place.\"\n\n[d] \"Atheists,\" says the _Pall Mall Gazette_ of January 18, 1873,\n\"write Atheism because they are Atheists, but Alexandre Dumas writes\nAtheism, though a good Catholic, who goes to church every Sunday.\"\n\n[e] Pre-eminent amongst these remonstrants is Mr. Gladstone. In the\nspeech before cited, he says, p. 25: \"It is to be hoped that they\nwill cause a shock and a reaction, and will compel many, who may\nhave too lightly valued the inheritance so dearly bought for them,\nand may have entered upon dangerous paths, to consider, while there\nis yet time, whither those paths will lead them. In no part of his\nwritings, perhaps, has Strauss been so effective, as where he assails\nthe inconsistency of those who adopt his premises, but decline to\nfollow him to their conclusions. Suffice it to say, these opinions are\nby no means a merely German brood; there are many writers of kindred\nsympathies in England, and some of as outspoken courage.\" (Compare the\nextracts from this class of writers given along with the Premier's\nremarks in Note A.)\n\n[f] Die Zust\u00e4nde eines Volkes h\u00e4ngen haupts\u00e4chlich von seiner Denkweise\nab: diese ist der wichtigste und einflussreichste Zustand. Alle andern\nk\u00f6nnen nur nach und in ihr begriffen werden. Sie ist es, die den\nMenschen zu einem solchen macht; und in ihrer Ausbildung entwickelt\nsich erst die Menschlichkeit.--(Wilhelm H. J. Bleek, \"Ueber den\nUrsprung der Sprache,\" p. 12).\n\n[3] Cowper, \"The Task,\" B. III.--It must be confessed that the\nhonest-minded humanitarian may often find in the reception\nhe encounters ample reason and motive enough for taking up\nTeufelsdroeckh's parable:--\"'In vain thou deniest it,' says the\nProfessor; 'thou _art_ my Brother. Thy very hatred, thy very envy,\nthose foolish lies thou tellest of me in thy splenetic humour: what\nis all this but an inverted sympathy? Were I a steam-engine, wouldst\nthou take the trouble to tell lies of me? Not thou! I should grind all\nunheeded, whether badly or well,'\"--(_Sartor Resartus_, B. III. c. 7).\nAnd when the bigotry of Unbelief is not content with persecuting the\nhonest-minded humanitarian--when he hears some shallow, half-animalized\nspecimen of humanity shouting for a red-handed communism and the blood\nof the innocent--_then_ he may not irrationally exclaim with the same\nphilosopher:--\"Wert thou, my little Brotherkin, suddenly covered up\nwithin the largest imaginable glass-bell,--what a thing it were, not\nfor thyself only, but for the world!\"\n\n[g] I am indebted to Mr. Gladstone's appendix (p. 40) for the following\napposite quotations from Sir George Cornewall Lewis's very scarce\nwork, \"On the Influence of Authority in Matters of Opinion.\" Speaking\nof \"Authority, and its place not as an antagonist of Reason, but as\nan instrument of Reason for the attainment of Truth,\" Sir George\nremarks, in page 35 of his book: \"'It is commonly said that the\nbelief is independent of the will,' and that no man can change it 'by\nmerely wishing it to be otherwise.' But 'the operation of a personal\ninterest may cause a man insensibly to adopt prejudices or partial and\nunexamined opinions.' In page 38 he adds: 'Napoleon affords a striking\ninstance of the corruption of the judgment in consequence of the\nmisdirection of the moral sentiments.'\"\n\nAll friends, and many casual readers, of S. T. Coleridge will\nremember that he asserted the same, or perhaps a stronger, conclusion\nupon metaphysical grounds, and with a force of language not easily\nsurpassed. This--one of Coleridge's bursts of gorgeous eloquence and\nimagery--will be found in \"The Friend,\" a book which, according to C.\nLamb, contains \"his best talk.\" The subject commences on page 260 of\nVol. III., Ed. 2, and page 211, seq., Vol. III., Ed. 4. In the latter\nplace it is amplified by a summary of his arguments, pages 213, 214.\nThe position propounded, that true insight cannot exist apart from\nmoral rectitude, receives considerable light from the doctrine of\nphilosophical postulates maintained in the \"Biographia Literaria,\"\nVol. I. c. 12, and chiefly borrowed from Schelling, to whom there\nis an honest reference in the first Edition, I. 250. I mention this\ncircumstance because Coleridge has been held guilty of unjustifiable\npillage by writers who have noted his borrowing, but omitted to observe\nsuch acknowledgments as he makes, together with the additions and\nalterations which he introduces.\n\nThe corruption of a naturally acute understanding has seldom been more\ngraphically painted than by Judge Talfourd. (See Additional Note,\nB.)\n\n[4] Compare Lord Macaulay on \"Special Pleading in History,\" Additional\nNote, C.\n\n[h] These divisions have been sometimes called Physico-Theology and\nEthico-Theology; but the latter designation is far too restricted for\nthe line of thought pursued in the latter portion of this Essay.\n\n[i] See Additional Note, D.\n\n[5] Pope, \"Essay on Man,\" Ep. II. Compare Mr. Pattison's notes, pp.\n87, 88, and 90. We may remark that the Aphorism \"Know thyself\" has\nbeen often employed to convey a lesson the most distant possible from\nPope's,--_e.g._, \"Know thyself; and so shalt thou know God, as far as\nis permitted to a creature, and in God all things.\"\n\n[j] See Additional Note, E.\n\n[6] The work referred to, \"Der alte und der neue Glaube,\" appeared in\nthe latter half of 1872.\n\n[7] Compare an illustrative passage, B. III. p. 34. \"We have been\nseeking to determine, whether our point of view, from which the\nlaw-governed All, full of life and intelligence, is the summit of\nthought (die h\u00f6chste Idee), can still be called a religious point\nof view, and we have animadverted upon Schopenhauer, who loses no\nopportunity of flying in the face of this which is our Idea. As I have\nsaid, such outbreaks impress our understanding as absurdities; to our\nfeelings, they are blasphemies. It appears to us rash and reckless,\non the part of a mere human individual, so boldly to set himself up\nagainst the All, out of which he grows, and from which he has the\nmorsel of intelligence that he misuses. We see in this an abnegation\nof that feeling of dependence, which we admit to belong to all men. We\ndemand the same piety towards our Universum, as the devout man of the\nold fashion did for his God.\"\n\n[8] This declaration we quote in its native German. Its first sentence,\ntogether with the sentences immediately preceding, are those passages\nselected for translation by Mr. Gladstone.\n\n\"Historisch genommen, d. h. die ungeheuren Wirkungen dieses Glaubens\nmit seiner v\u00f6lligen Grundlosigkeit zusammengehalten, l\u00e4sst sich die\nGeschichte von der Auferstehung Jesu nur als ein weit historischer\nHumbug bezeichnen. Es mag dem\u00fcthigend sein f\u00fcr den menschlichen Stolz,\naber es ist so; Jesus k\u00f6nnte all das Wahre und Gute, auch all das\nEinseitige und Schroffe das ja doch auf die Massen immer den st\u00e4rksten\nEindruck macht, gelehrt und im Leben beth\u00e4tigt haben; gleichwohl w\u00fcrden\nseine Lehren wie einzelne Bl\u00e4tter im Winde verweht und zerstreut\nworden sein, w\u00e4ren diese Bl\u00e4tter nicht von dem Wahnglauben an seine\nAuferstehung als von einem derben handfesten Einb\u00e4nde zusammengefasst\nund dadurch erhalten worden.\" (p. 72.)\n\n[9] As a consequence of the difference in standpoint, the use made by\nthe two men of their several conclusions is marked by very considerable\ncontrast. Comte's Humanity was to be served by a ritual as well as a\nsocial set of ordinances. Strauss looks quite another way. Considering\nthe outrage which would be committed upon philosophy and feeling should\nhis Universum find irreverent treatment in the words and writings\nof men; our emotion, he says, on such occasions becomes thoroughly\nreligious. If then it be asked in express terms whether he and his\nfellow-thinkers really have a Religion or no, they cannot answer\nroundly as they will when questioned on Christianity; they must rather\nsay yes or no according to the meaning of the word Religion in the mind\nof their questioner. (See Strauss, p. 143.)\n\n[10] In the Livraison of the Deux Mondes for November, 1856, M.\nCucheval-Clarigny wrote thus: \"Personne plus que David Hume n'a \u00e9prouv\u00e9\nl'inconstance des jugemens humains. Apr\u00e8s avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 mis au rang des\nesprits qui ont fait le plus d'honneur \u00e0 l'humanit\u00e9, on le compte\nvolontiers aujourd'hui parmi les corrupteurs de la raison et les\nap\u00f4tres du mal.\" That another kind of interest has been more recently\nfelt in Hume is evidenced by the republication of his works in America\nand England. While writing this note I learn that a new edition of the\nseldom-read Treatise on Human Nature will shortly appear, with notes by\ntwo well-known members of Balliol College.\n\n[11] Compare with this the subjoined orison for a special gift of\nmoral rectitude penned by Professor Huxley (Lay Sermons, p. 373). \"I\nprotest that if some great power would agree to make me always think\nwhat is true and do what is right, on condition of being turned into\na sort of clock and wound up every morning before I got out of bed, I\nshould instantly close with the offer. The only freedom I care about\nis the freedom to do right; the freedom to do wrong I am ready to part\nwith on the cheapest terms to any one who will take it of me.\" It\nseems wonderful that the talented writer fails to perceive that should\nhis terms be granted the bargain would be dear indeed--it must take\nplace at the expense of his Personality. He would have no choice left,\nconsequently no rightness of choice. With the loss of his volition his\nmanhood would be forfeited; and the Huxley of our praise and blame must\nneeds sink at once and for ever from a Person to a Thing--\n\n    \"Rolled round in Earth's diurnal course\n    With rocks, and stones, and trees.\"\n\nAfter all, we may trust that this outpouring of soul after mechanical\ngoodness, is neither more nor less than a fresh rehearsal of the\npopular fallacy or fable of a learned and intelligent, but somewhat\nover-hasty, death-watch. The difference between the two myths is not\ngreat, and both owe their existence to the prolific fancy of Professor\nHuxley. About three years ago the teleological beetle speculated in\na manner which would have grieved the soul of Aldrich or Whately\nrespecting the purpose of a kitchen clock. The death-watch concluded,\nlike a death-watch, and not like a logician, that the clock's final end\nwas to tick. Man, as Bacon tells us, is the servant and interpreter\nof nature. Does any one feel sure that a death-watch is the servant\nand interpreter of kitchen timepieces? Yet his inconsequent thinking\nserved as an implement of Fate to \"quail, crush, conclude, and quell\"\nTeleology in general, and the Design argument for Natural Theism in\nparticular. _Now_, a human Huxley clock always going morally right\n_because it must_, is equally conclusive against all freedom and all\nConscience. Equally conclusive, we know, because equally true to Nature\nand to Fact. As conclusive as arguments against received biological\ntenets drawn from those great natural curiosities the Gorgon, the\ndragon of St. George, and the fire-breathing Chim\u00e6ra, who united in her\nown fair person a lion, a dragon, and a goat. This latter well-known\nphenomenon may seem nearly as striking as any right-minded clock\nimaginable, and not much more incongruous.\n\nMany readers may be reminded of Amurath's Ring. But few probably will\nknow, and fewer still recollect, Miss Edgeworth's clever comment upon\nit in \"Rosamond.\" The book is unfortunately scarce, not having been\nreprinted along with \"Early Lessons,\" therefore we add the extract\n(\"Rosamond,\" vol. i., p. 148):--\n\n\"Do you remember, brother,\" said Laura, \"your wish when you were\nreading that story in the 'Adventurer,' last week?\"\n\n\"Not I. What wish?\" said Godfrey. \"What story?\"\n\n\"Don't you remember,\" said Laura, \"when you were reading the story of\nAmurath and his ring, which always pressed his finger when he was going\nto do anything wrong?\"\n\n\"Yes; I wished to have such a ring,\" said Godfrey.\n\n\"Well, a friend is as good as such a ring,\" said Rosamond; \"for a\nfriend is, as somebody observed, a _second conscience_; I may call\nLaura my _second conscience_.\"\n\n\"Mighty fine! but I don't like secondary conscience; a first conscience\nis, in my opinion, a better thing,\" said Godfrey.\n\n\"You may have that too,\" said Rosamond.\n\n\"Too! but I'd rather have it alone,\" said Godfrey. \"There is something\nso cowardly in not daring to stand alone.\"\n\nThe lesson seems to be that second-hand goodness falls short of\ntrue goodness, and that the impulse to moral action must arise from\nwithin--so unmanly is every endeavour at shaking off, either by\ncowardice or by unreflectiveness, the human burden and birthright of\nResponsibility.\n\nAmurath's ring was a mechanical conscience. Professor Huxley's clock\nis a mechanism in the outward form of a man. These two imaginations\nconvey the useful lessons that neither Conscience nor Mankind are mere\nmachines. A clock goes because it must go its hourly round; a man\nchooses which way, when, and whither he will go.\n\n[12] 1 Corinthians ix. 16.\n\n[13] For a useful account of Plato's Dialogue in connection with\nPlato's philosophy, see \"Introduction to the Republic,\" by Davies and\nVaughan, pp. xxi.-xxiv. Cambridge, 1852.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nPHILOSOPHY OF DESIGN.\n\n\n \"It is an assured truth, and a conclusion of experience, that a little\n or superficial knowledge of Philosophy may incline the mind of Man to\n Atheism, but a farther proceeding therein doth bring the mind back\n again to Religion: for in the entrance of Philosophy, when the second\n causes, which are next unto the senses, do offer themselves to the\n mind of man, if it dwell and stay there it may induce some oblivion\n of the highest Cause; but when a man passeth on farther, and seeth\n the dependence of causes and the works of Providence; then, according\n to the allegory of the poets, he will easily believe that the highest\n link of Nature's chain must needs be tied to the foot of _Jupiter's_\n chair.\"\n\n  _Lord Bacon's Advancement of Learning,_ Book I.\n\n \"Deus sine dominio, providenti\u00e2, et causis finalibus nihil aliud est\n quam fatum et natura. A c\u00e6c\u00e2 necessitate metaphysic\u00e2, qu\u00e6 eadem est\n et semper et ubique, nulla oritur variatio. Tota rerum conditarum pro\n locis ac temporibus diversitas, ab ideis et voluntate entis necessario\n existentis solummodo oriri potuit.\"--_Sir Isaac Newton, Scholium at\n close of Principia._\n\n    \"Tax not my sloth that I\n      Fold my arms beside the brook;\n    Each cloud that floated in the sky\n      Writes a letter in my book.\n\n    \"There was never mystery\n       But 'tis figured in the flowers;\n    Was never secret history\n       But birds tell it in the bowers.\"\n\n    _Emerson's Poems.--The Apology._\n\n\n    SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER II.\n\nThis Chapter enters upon an examination of the kind of reasoning\ninvolved in the Argument from Design, and an inquiry into its special\nforce. These investigations are accompanied by illustrative examples of\nAnalogy in different shapes. The most powerful objections against this\nargument, and the various modes of stating it, are then described and\ncriticised.\n\nA re-statement of the whole line of thought is followed by the outline\nof a proposed method for the constructive science of Natural Theology.\n\nThe Chapter closes with a corollary on Efficient and Final Causes.\n\n    _Analysis_--Argument from Design--Its Popular Form, and the Popular\n    Objections raised against it--Art and Nature dissimilar--Organic\n    and Inorganic Worlds, their Unlikeness and their Likenesses--Difference\n    between Similitude and Analogy, whether the latter be Illustrative\n    or Illative, and easiest ways of stating both Analogies.\n\n    Scientific Difficulties--Charge of proving too much--Anthropomorphism\n    and Dualism--Physical and Moral Antithesis--Was Paley to blame\n    for introducing these Questions?--Answer to the charge of proving\n    too much--On how many points need Analogy rest?--Examples.\n\n    Charge of proving too little--Design assumes Designer as a Foregone\n    Conclusion--Process observed is test of Designer in Art, but fails in\n    Nature--Criticism on these Objections.\n\n    Baden Powell compared with Paley--Wide Views and Inductions--Argument\n    analysed into _Gradations_ of Proof, Order, and Intelligence--Means,\n    Ends, and Foresight--Physical and Moral Causation--Argument\n    analysed into various _Lines_ of Proof--Their Separate and\n    Consilient Force.\n\n    Value of Powell's views on Causation--Objections against some\n    peculiarities of his language--Natural Theology and Natural Religion\n    distinguished--Professor Newman--Use of Words on subject of Design.\n\n    Statement of the Constructive Method now to be employed--Corollary\n    on Efficient and Final Causes.\n\n\n    _Additional Notes and Illustrations_:--\n\n    A.--On the abstract reasonings involved in Natural Theology.\n    B.--On the phrase \"Design implies a Designer.\"\n    C.--Hume on the analogies of Art and Nature.\n    D.--The Pantheistic consequences charged upon Physical Speculation.\n    E.--The extent and divisions of the Science of Natural Theology.\n    F.--On Teleology.\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nPHILOSOPHY OF DESIGN.\n\n\nThe argument from Design in Nature has been made familiar to most\nreaders in Natural Theology by Paley's well-known book. It is probable\nthat no argument has ever been more praised, and at the same time\nmore strongly controverted. Our business lies, of course, with the\ncontroversy; and we must say a few words on our present mode of dealing\nwith it.\n\nNothing could be more useless than to repeat illustrative examples\nof Design already thrice told by an endless variety of treatises. Of\nso wide a subject everything may be quoted as an illustration, from\na pebble to a world, if only the principle illustrated--the pivot on\nwhich the argument turns--be understood and admitted. In modern times,\nthis turning-point is precisely the centre of the dispute. Untrained\nminds misapprehend the meaning of the word Design, and are further\nstill from apprehending the real force of argument from analogy. And\nwhen these subjects come to be discussed by skilled writers, various\nquestions are always raised which generally issue in irreconcilable\ndifferences of opinion.\n\nOur plan here will be to take the argument in its best-known shape,\nand examine it from the points of view occupied by several classes\nof objectors, beginning, as is reasonable, with the most popular\ndifficulties and misapprehensions. It does not seem necessary to load\nthe page with references to controversialists of the ordinary sort,\nparticularly as we endeavour to look at the whole question through\ntheir eyes.\n\nRespecting the more philosophic questions it is necessary to observe,\nthat the Evolution-theory will not form a topic of the present chapter.\nIt is excluded for two reasons. One, that we are now trying to put a\nvalue on the argument from Design _per se_, and not to compare it with\nrival theories. The other reason springs from the subject of Evolution\nitself--it is too extensive to be thus briefly treated--and the sum of\nthis Essay must be taken together as furnishing a counter statement\nto the manner in which it has been employed by certain of its ardent\nadvocates.[14]\n\nWe hope for a further advantage from the method proposed. The cause of\ntruth ought to gain from being looked at on more than one side; and,\nwhatever be the worth and true effect of reasoning from Design, we may\nexpect by this method to display it adequately.\n\nThe word itself, like all figurative terms--or words used in a\nsecondary sense--is by no means free from ambiguity. It has, in common\nparlance, several shades of signification. Design being the centre of\nPaley's argument, and containing the one idea which gives force to all\nthe rest: his first object was to fix the sense in which he employed\nit. He did so by using an illustration.\n\nTo explain by comparison is always a popular resource, some serious\ndrawbacks notwithstanding. Almost every one prefers that an author\nshould use a sparkling similitude which tells a great deal, rather\nthan write what looks like a grammar and dictionary of his science.\nAnalysis and induction require thought on the part of him who employs\nthem--thought also on the part of a reader determined to understand\nwhat he reads. Paley saw all this thoroughly, and at the beginning\nof his book employed the now celebrated comparison taken from a\nwatchmaker and a watch. His judgment received support from the\npopularity he enjoyed, and from the way in which everybody borrowed his\nillustration.[15]\n\nYet Paley's deference to the popular understanding gave rise to the\nfirst general misapprehension of his treatise. He sets out from a kind\nof surprise--the surprise his readers would feel at finding a watch\nupon a heath. Now this feeling was immediately alleged as a conclusive\nobjection against Paley's comparison, and as a ground for distrusting\nthe whole argument founded upon it. The world, it was said, cannot be\nlikened to a watch, nor yet to any other sort of mechanism. Between\nthings natural, and the things which men make, the difference is not\na mere contrast of perfection with imperfection. The real reason why\nwe are surprised to see Paley's watch lying on a moor--and not at all\nsurprised to see Paley's stone lying beside it--springs from this\nvery difference. And though the history of a stone, common, coarse,\nand worthless, is really more wonderful than the history of any watch,\nand though the stone has an infinitely longer pedigree, we should\nnever speak or think of it in the same way. We feel that the objects\nare dissimilar, and our surprise testifies the fact. A heath is given\nup to nature, a watchmaker's shop to art. The watch is out of place\namong stones, the stone among watches. The idea raised at the outset,\ntherefore, is that Art and Nature would seem to be thoroughly unlike.\n\nAt a first view of the subject, these remarks appear open to one\nobvious rejoinder. The sort of surprised feeling which Paley describes,\nis not in itself a proof of real unlikeness. A weed is a plant out\nof place; we do not expect thriving crops of cabbage or teazle in a\ncarefully kept rose-garden, nor gooseberry bushes amongst azaleas. The\nproudest flower that blossoms is a weed in a vineyard, in a plot of\nopium-poppies, or mixed with other herbs medicinal. So, too, a rough\ndiamond would not be out of place in a watchmaker's shop; but if we\nsaw a stone of no selling value inside a case of watches we should\ncertainly experience some surprise. And the feeling would remain even\nthough we were quite unable to explain how the poor pebble differed\nchemically from the priceless gem. We know that the latter would appear\nto a jeweller's customers like a rose among flowers, but the former\nworthless as a weed. The jeweller would consider it a trespasser fit\nonly to be turned out of doors.\n\nBut does this rejoinder satisfactorily dispose of the difficulty? Is\nnot the true reason why we might observe with some wonder a watch lying\nupon a moor resolvable into the fact of our knowing its use and being\nquite sure that some one had dropped it there?[k] A savage might not\nfeel in the least surprised, unless, indeed, he happened to suppose\nthat the watch was a kind of animal he had never seen before, and took\nnotice of the singular sound it made. In this event he would probably\nbreak it to pieces without discovering the purpose or mode of its\ncontrivance.\n\nThroughout all disputatious matter, a thought on one side leads to a\nthought upon the other--at least, amongst tolerably fair people. The\nidea which we have just imagined our savage to entertain respecting a\nwatch suggests a further question. What effect ought in reason to be\nproduced upon cultured minds by the contemplation of some unknown or\nhalf-comprehended phenomenon?--a question this, closely bearing upon\nthe whole subject under discussion. Now surely it is from intelligent\nwonder--a contrast of the unknown with what we already know--a feeling\nof mystery to be solved by us, that inquiry and science perpetually\nspring. A fossil-shell, the former habitation of a marine animal, found\nupon some mountain top, presents a contrast and a mystery of this kind.\nMoreover, the highest triumph of inquiring science is the discovery,\nnot of difference anywhere, but rather of resemblances in objects\napparently diverse. An uninquiring mind will never perceive any common\nattribute, either ideal or structural, between a stone and a watch.\n\nBut did Paley himself perceive any such community of attribute? So\nfar does he appear from the perception that he speaks of the stone as\nan \"unorganised, unmechanised substance, without mark or indication\nof contrivance,\" and adds, \"It might be difficult to show that such\nsubstance could not have existed from eternity.\" Paley's day was meagre\nin natural science, and Paley was as meagrely acquainted with its\nresults as he was with metaphysical philosophy. Few people, however,\neven now-a-days, know enough of the laws which govern inorganic\nproducts to find their investigation a slight or easy task. For a\npurpose of comparison with any human work or mechanism, most inquirers\nwill prefer having recourse with Paley to the world of organisation.\nThe flower and fructification of a plant or shrub growing on the heath\nbeside Paley's watch, though carelessly passed over a thousand times,\nand exciting no surprise from anything unusual in its _habitat_, will,\nwhen observed, raise the most sincere admiration. And the same may be\nsaid of the bony skeleton of the lizard[16] racing round plant and\nshrub, the forehand of the mole which burrows beneath them, and the\nwing of the bat circling nightly in upper air.\n\nTake, then, replies the objector, an organism, vegetable or animal,\nwhichever you or Paley may prefer. The difficulty formerly urged at\nonce recurs, slightly altered in shape, but with augmented point and\nforce. Your organisms are not put together like the parts of a watch\n(_undique collatis membris_)--brass from this place, steel from that,\nand so on, with china dial-plate, covering-glass, and gold case.\nAll these things were apart in nature, they were severally chosen,\nmanipulated, and brought together. What we see is a successful union of\nmaterials possessing inherent adaptation to definite purposes--such as\nthe freedom of brass from rust, or the superior elasticity of steel,\nqualities indicating the skill and workmanlike knowledge of some human\nartificer, and showing by their utilization the truth of what was\nbefore asserted. Watches and worlds, the products of Art and of Nature,\nare obviously and thoroughly unlike.\n\nBy way of answer, it might be observed that in organization we do\nreally see very distinct constituents combined. In a plant, for\ninstance, there is the combination of a growing point, a humus or\npabulum that feeds it, and the stimuli, air, water, light, and all\nthe \"skiey influences\" by which its passive vitality is excited\nand sustained. We see plant life, by reason of these concurrent\nadaptations, swelling into leaf, stem, bud, corolla, and fruit,\nthroughout all the brighter tribes of vegetable beauty that bloom\napparent to the unassisted eye. And the like holds true respecting\nanimals, but with increased variety and complication of conditions,\nmade necessary by their higher mode of existence. The marvels of\ntheir many powers, habits, and perfections of form and movement are\ngreat, but greater still the vast multitude of ministering aids put in\nrequisition to ensure their earliest appearance and after continuance\nin life and enjoyment. When we contemplate microscopic Nature, a like\nsweep of combination is again evident to the skilful naturalist, and\nexcites his constant wonder, especially when observed in connection\nwith the exquisite finish of minute creatures and their infinitesimal\nparts, both alike unperceived by our ordinary human senses. And a\nsimilar idea of invisible, and perhaps almost incomprehensible, harmony\nmight be raised by a consideration of the elements, metallic and\nnon-metallic, brought together in numberless inorganic productions, as\nwell as of the forces which bind them in hard cohesion, and give them\nsuch properties as we may discover in the commonest block of granite.\nAnd what if we could extend our field of view to a world--to the\nuniverse?\n\nThe answer suggested by this last paragraph has its value, and the\nprinciple involved in it will occur for our scrutiny further on. But\nat present this train of thought, if pursued, might be likened to the\nweed we spoke of,--it would not be altogether in place here. The truth\nis that the whole objection thus parried appears more out of place\nstill, and is therefore itself not a flower, but a weed of popular\nrhetoric. And the reason of its irrelevancy is plain. Paley's argument\ndoes not really turn upon the similitude of any two objects of simple\napprehension, but upon an analogical comparison; the discovery, that\nis, of the likeness between two ratios, a process known in common life\nunder the name of Proportion. Hence it is from the illative force of\nanalogy that this topic of Design derives its value. The analogy does,\nin fact, serve a double purpose,--- _first_ to explain, and _secondly_\nto prove. We had better look at it from both points of view.\n\nThe easiest method for making an _illustrative_ analogy intelligible is\nto state it in old-fashioned style as a rule of three sum; the fourth\nterm being the conclusion which completes it. \"As a watch is to the\nwatchmaker, so is creation, (exemplified by such and such a specimen,)\nto its Creator.\" That is to say, there exists some ratio or relation\nconnecting the watch and the watchmaker, which exists also between the\nworld and its Creator.\n\nTo see its _illative_ force used as an argument, we need only alter the\nposition of the four terms, and state our proportion as is more usual\nin modern day. \"As the watch is to such and such specimens of creation,\nso is the watchmaker to the Author of any and all of these things.\"\n\nIn the _first_ statement Paley's similitude is displayed in full as an\nasserted illustration of Design. The watch is a thing contrived--that\nis, a design realized, and the maker is its contriver. Just so, is the\nworld a Design realized by its Creator. And it appears plainly implied\nin the assertion, that even as the little watch shows the limited power\nand intelligence of its maker, so the vast and unfathomable universe\nillustrates the infinite power and wisdom of its incomprehensible\nAuthor.\n\nThe _second_ mode of statement displays the force of Paley's analogy\nviewed as a chain of reasoning. The watch is _not like_ the world, but\nthere is something in common between them, and this something it is\nPaley's purpose, and the purpose of his various continuators, to show\nat the greatest convenient length. Now such community of character must\nbe sufficient to establish a further community still. When we see a\nwatch we are sure it had a designer,--the watchmaker; and here, again,\nPaley means to argue that from every example of contrivance which we\ncan adduce and examine, the same inference ensues, and always must\nensue. Therefore (he concludes) from the immeasurable designed world we\ninfer the world's omnipotent Designer.\n\nThe chief Divine attributes (as, for example, omnipotence) are dwelt\nupon by Paley towards the close of his treatise. But it seems well to\ninsert the adjective at once. Most thinking persons admit that whoever\nbelieves in a Creator may find from the physical Cosmos and its\n\n  \"Mysterious worlds untravelled by the sun,\"\n\nample reason for justifying the noblest of such adjectives. They\ngenerally go further, and allow that any Theist finds in these endless\nmarvels a full confirmation of his faith--there is, as Coleridge says,\na whole universe at hand to ratify the decision. But what many educated\npeople who concede thus much disallow, is the sufficient witness of\nDesign standing by itself to prove what it may fairly corroborate or\neven extend. To illustrate, confirm, or widen what is already held a\ntruth is one thing; to serve as its sole sufficient witness is another.\nThis conclusiveness some deny, and more scruple to affirm. And one of\nthe drawbacks in arguing from analogy seems to be, that all except the\nmost philosophically trained minds experience a sort of hesitation\nin estimating its force--a hesitation which they are at a loss to\ndefine in words. Consequently, the attack upon its adequacy is always\ndifficult to answer; so many various shades of negation must be classed\ntogether for brevity's sake, and met by one or two general lines of\ndefence. The safest way, probably, is to make the negative classes as\nwide as possible, and to put the scientific doubts in their most fatal\nform of expression. And it appears hard to imagine anything really\ndestructive of evidence which may not be brought under one of the two\nfollowing heads. There may be, first, a failure of evidence when it\nis not strong enough in its facts and circumstances to justify the\nconclusion drawn--when, in short, it proves too little. Secondly, it is\nworthless, if its acceptance so damages the position occupied by those\nwho employ it, that their purpose is thereby destroyed, their _locus\nstandi_ demolished--in other words, they have proved too much.\n\nMay we not, then, presume it impossible to bring worse charges against\nany argument than whatever can be urged in support of these two\naccusations? And we will _first_ put the well-known analogy on its\ntrial for proving too much, because it is from anxiety to avoid this\ncharge that most analogical reasoners are apt to risk proving too\nlittle.\n\nAdmit, say Paley's most decided antagonists, the relevancy of an\nargument from human art. It must be taken to show the Creator of the\nUniverse as Theists conceive and acknowledge Him. Let us at once ask\nin what light He is thereby represented? Is it not, so to speak, as a\nsupreme Anthropomorphic[l] Craftsman sketching a vast plan or design,\nand moulding the materials necessary for its realization? We begin with\nthe remark that His work--the world--must show some traces of that\nplastic process and the hand of its Moulder. The requirement seems just\nand reasonable, and is commonly answered by an appeal to what have been\ntermed the records of creation, the structure of the heavens, and the\nstructure of the earth. Thus, for example, we are referred to Geology\nand Pal\u00e6ontology, and are led from age to age, and type to type. In\npassing from one formation to another we seem (as Goethe said) to catch\nNature in the fact. At all events the plastic process is everywhere\ntraceable, and to its evidences the Theist points with triumph.\n\nBut no intelligent objector can stop here. He will next inquire what\non theistic principles was the origin of this material substance so\nconstantly undergoing transformation. Most sceptical thinkers put the\ninquiry in a trenchant manner; they not only demand to be answered,\nbut they prescribe beforehand the sort of answer to be returned. It is\nuseless, they tell us, to speak of archetypes existing in the Divine\nmind, and to illustrate them by the creative thought of musician or\nsculptor, of painter or of poet. The hard, coarse world must be looked\nat as it is: an actual material habitation for sorrowing and sinful\nhuman creatures; its physical conditions, imperfect in that respect,\nunhappily corresponding too well with the low moralities of its tenants.\n\nNow, they say, if we examine Paley's common-sense analogy no one\ncan at all doubt what answer is suggested there. The steel of the\nwatch-spring, the brass of the wheel-work, and other materials for all\nthe curious mechanical contrivances required, were taken into account\nby the watch-designer when he formed his design. Had it been otherwise\nhe could not have calculated on finding the necessary strength,\nelasticity, resistance to rust, and other properties on which Paley\ndwells so distinctly. In like manner, it has been said by some physical\nscience Christians since Paley's time: \"Let matter and its primary\nproperties be presupposed, and the argument from Design is easy.\" True,\nbut it seems quite as easy to suppose the world itself eternal. And we\nknow that this supposition was adopted by pagan philosophers, to whom\nit appeared the easiest of all beliefs.\n\nBut other philosophic pagans, holding clearly that the world\nhad a beginning, conceived its First Cause to be like Paley's\nDesigner--analogous to an earthly workman. They carried out the analogy\nthoroughly--more thoroughly than modern writers, and believed both\nArtificer and the matter from which He shaped the visible universe,\nself-subsistent, indestructible, and co-eternal.\n\nIn this eternity of matter and its native inflexibilities, these\ngreat heathen thinkers found an apology for what they considered\nthe failure of creative power--misshapen things, monstrosities, and\nimperfections. The Creator never desired them, but His will was\nthwarted by the material He worked in. Against this dualism the early\nFathers protested. Will the modern Theist (his assailants ask) deny\nhimself, and affirm two independent and self-existent principles;\nor will he deny the parallelism asserted in Paley's analogy? Can he\nconscientiously believe that its issue is a worthy representation of\nthe Divine and omnipotent Creator? If not, it has failed by proving too\nmuch[m].\n\nraised. Who can help seeing that several of them lie equally against\nall rational theories which have ever been suggested to account for the\norigin of that sorrow and evil which we see and acknowledge everywhere?\nAnd does not the same remark apply to every attempt at solving the\nantithesis of mind and matter? Some thoughtful men have believed that\nthey could see their way to a solution; others believe it altogether\nabove human reason, and point with a kind of triumph to the failures\nof philosophy. However this may be, the mournful moral enigma,[17]\nand the unexplained antithesis underlying our knowledge of nature,\nattach themselves equally to every possible conception of the universe,\nreligious or irreligious, common-sense or metaphysical. They have no\nspecial connection with our argument from Design, and ought not in\nfairness to be brought as objections against it.\n\nThe more real question just now is, whether Paley's mechanical analogy\nwas to blame for introducing the problem of cosmical matter into the\ndiscussion.\n\nOn this question the opinions of competent and unprejudiced judges\ndisagree. By an eminent and accomplished writer the case is summed\nup as follows, in the Harveian Oration for 1865. Having previously\nincluded the material factor under mechanical adaptation as\ndistinguished from art in the highest sense, Dr. Acland goes on to\nsay (page 13): \"The illustration of the watch so quaintly employed by\nNieuwentyt, and so entirely appropriated by Paley, only in a coarse\nway suggests the parallel between infinite art and common mechanical\nskill. It has done some mischief to the cause it advocates, by making\nfamiliar a rude illustration, which minds without imagination, or void\nof constructive power, have accepted as a recognised explanation of the\n_method of operation_ by an Infinite Creative Will.\"\n\nPaley's critics should however observe, that he did not himself\nintend the objectionable inference. Probably he never even perceived\nthat it might be drawn from his comparison. Abstract inquiries\nconnected with Theism, he banished to the end of his book, where they\nare discussed in a manner little calculated to satisfy any readers\nwho have ever felt them as substantial difficulties.[18] But then,\nhe would most likely have referred these persons to the writings of\nprofessed metaphysicians. It may be wise for us to take warning both\nby what Paley did and by what he left undone. Some deeper questions\nare indispensable to the argument from Design, but we shall follow\nhis example so far as to avoid such disquisitions as were current in\nhis day under the name of metaphysics. On the other hand we shall\ndraw the required data from that critical Fact-philosophy of Mind and\nHuman Nature, which forms to so many thinkers the birth-star of a new\nscience, one amongst the rising hopes of our nineteenth century.\n\nMeantime, our business on hand is to rebut the present accusation of\nproving too much, brought against Paley's analogy. We shall try to\ncomplete our answer by setting his argument in the point of view under\nwhich he evidently meant it to be looked at.\n\nEither as an illustration or as a means of proof, Analogy need not hold\nin more than a single point; provided only that this single point is\nclear and well-established--resting, for example, on a moral law or a\ncausal _nexus_. Any one who desires to make an analytical investigation\ninto this law of inference will receive valuable aid from Ueberweg's\nLogic, \u00a7\u00a7 131 and 2, particularly if compared with \u00a7 129.\n\nTo a common-sense mind we may give sufficient satisfaction by adducing\none or two good analogies. Thus, for instance, the duties of a\nreligious minister are often explained by saying that he ought to be\nthe shepherd of his flock; that is, his relation to his people ought\nto resemble that of the shepherd to his sheep. We all understand how\ntruly is here expressed a world of watchful care. But are all points of\nthe relation to be implied? May the spiritual pastor ever become the\nslayer or the salesman of his flock?\n\nAgain,--writers upon political subjects some years ago used very\ncommonly to quote from the days of Alfred the Great supposed precedents\nfor our most modern constitutional _dicta_. In many cases the thing\ndefended was a legitimate outgrowth of the precedent cited; but\nto pronounce the two _identical_ seemed sufficiently absurd. In\nconfutation of some such absurdities, clever men argued that the body\ncorporate has, like the individual body, its childhood, growth, and\nmaturity. The argument became generally accepted, and got extended to\nthe distinctions between healthy increase and sickly degeneration, with\nother like inferences. The further conclusion was next drawn, that\nevery national body resembles the human frame in a necessary decay, and\ninevitable mortality. Now, whatever opinion may be entertained as to\nthe fact of a death-rate of nationalities, nothing seems more certain\nthan that those who first employed the comparison never contemplated\nthis particular corollary. Whether their first use of it was wise\nor unwise, has been, like Paley's Watch-analogy, a matter of some\nconsiderable dispute.\n\nThe general subject of Analogy, rightly or wrongly extended, admits of\nwider illustration.\n\nSimile and metaphor are often compressed analogies, and many of them\ngain in beauty from expansion. Pope's celebrated comparison of the\ntraveller ascending the Alps with the student who scales the heights of\nliterature; and how\n\n    \"Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise;\"\n\nis a good example of a poet's successfully expanding his own thought.\nStill more exquisitively true to nature is the final parallel drawn in\nColeridge's description of the divided friends who stood apart,--\n\n    \"Like cliffs which had been rent asunder,\"\n\nwhile the marks of a former union lingered indestructible. Perhaps\nfew readers of \"Christabel\" ever looked at Lodore, and \"its scars\nremaining,\" without feeling how aptly they represent traces of\nthought and affection engraved upon the soul of man, deeper and more\nimperishable than the prim\u00e6val rocks between which the \"dreary sea\" now\nflows.\n\nThe wonderful force of many among Shakespeare's metaphors is derived\nfrom compressed analogy. But by expanding\n\n    \"The slings and arrows of outrageous Fortune,\"\n\nwe should form no better conception of the goddess; and the next line,\n\n    \"Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,\"\n\nmight easily be turned into nonsense! Like Paley's \"watch,\" the \"sea\"\nholds true only in one point. Shakespeare had before his eye the image\nof multitudinous vastness. But what arms could we take up to stem the\nbillows of a swelling tide?\n\nNo one can read many commentators on the Scripture without feeling\nhow groundless are numberless conclusions arrived at by extending\nScriptural analogies beyond their just limits. Preachers and platform\nspeakers are still more guilty. Not content with straining Holy Writ,\nthey add to the mischief by pressing into their service comparisons\nof double meaning. The above quoted word \"sea,\" has long been a\nmuch-enduring similitude in its relation to the countries and islands\nof the earth. What is it really to us, the earth's inhabitants? Our\nhighway and bond of union? or a waste of waters given to divide rivals,\nas Horace phrases it, \"_Oceano dissociabili_\"? The last is the oldest\nmetaphor.[19]\n\nEnough has been said upon various analogies to show how frequently even\nin their widest use (that of illustration), the effect of extending\nthem beyond their one salient point, is utter confusion. And with\nrespect to illative analogy, this rule becomes obviously more stringent\nstill. Paley meant it to be observed strictly as regards his own\nanalogous reasoning.\n\nBut the caution itself must be cautiously applied, where the salient\npoint on which the inference turns is too superficial, or too weak\nto stand alone. And this is the very thing we have to discuss\nnext,--because a _second_ accusation brought against the argument from\nDesign is, that by reason of weakness in its pivot, it proves far too\nlittle.\n\nThis second charge is less usual amongst popular than scientific\nwriters, and most of us may learn something by sifting it. Their\nposition may be described in few words as standing thus:--\n\nAll examples which men can, of their own knowledge, connect with\nDesign, fall under one sole class, and from this class alone they\ncan argue. It contains the products of human workmanship and\nmanufacture--and nothing else. By its characteristic processes (which\ntogether with their result make the sum of what we know about this\nclass) it is so essentially dissociated from the products of Nature,\nthat any appearance of design common between them must be pronounced\nsuperficial in the absence of stronger _nexus_. But since proof of\nsuch _nexus_ remains wanting, Paley's analogy is worthless. It will\nbe observed that the effect of this position is to sever between\nhuman works and natural things quite as completely as did the popular\nobjection which we put first in our list of assaults upon Paley. Yet,\nthough these conclusions may seem suspiciously coincident, the grounds\nof argument are really distinct. Scientific persons do not compare two\nobjects natural and artificial, nor yet their two sets of constituents,\nand say, \"These are unlike.\" They argue rather that the relative or\nproportionate likeness asserted is insufficiently made out, and that\nwhen it is said \"Design implies a designer,\" people are speaking of\ndesign worked out in the known way of workmen. We (they observe) need\nnot _deny_ a designer of the world, but we desiderate evidence of his\nactual workmanship. By this we shall know that he first conceived and\nthen realized the alleged design. We do not feel convinced by being\nshown certain organic _somethings_ in their perfect state, and being\ntold to observe how very like contrivances they are. They may be very\nlike, certainly, but we want assurances that they can be nothing else.\nWe want to have shown us some work _being_ done, and to ascertain\nthat it is carried on in a workmanlike manner. Then we shall say with\nconfidence, Here is the active hand of a designer. To compress our\nrequisition into a single sentence,--We want not only to catch Nature\nin the fact, but also to ascertain that Nature's way of performing the\nfact has something essentially humanlike about it.\n\nTo see our meaning clearly (add these objectors) take the instance of\nsome marvellous work of man's art previously unknown to us. We could,\nif we perceived the _marks_ of human fabrication, reason from a watch,\nor some other well known machine, to the conclusion that some person\nhad designed it. In other words, we should feel sure that we were\nlooking at a new product of skill, which differed from what we had seen\nbefore in the degree of excellence attained. The difference we feel in\nour transition from Art to Nature appears, on the contrary, to be a\ndifference not only between more or less perfect products or processes,\nbut a thorough difference of kind in the whole _manner_ of bringing\nabout the results placed before our eyes. Or put the case (they\ncontinue) as a piece of circumstantial evidence. We say positively of\nthis or that machine, They are contrivances, things designed, because\nwe know the _history_ of their manufacture. We feel positive, because\nwe are arguing from a plain patent fact to a hidden but absolutely\nessential condition, without which the fact could not exist. As regards\nnatural products we have not got the fact--we do not know the history\nof their production. We cannot say, Here is the process, because the\nprocesses of Nature are mostly unknown to us. Paley therefore would\nhave us assume the fact and argue from it; first to design, next, to\nsomething more hidden still,--a Designer. Yet what we _do_ know of\nnatural processes is not encouraging; there is visible about them more\nunlikeness than likeness to the processes employed by man. The truth\nmay be surmised, that Paley was always seeing in his own examples the\nfootprints, as he thought, of a Designer. Hence he affirmed Design,\nand then argued back again in a never-ending circle. There is really\nno reason why he should have travelled round such a circuit. If his\nargument shows anything, it shows a Designer at once.[n]\n\nWith some risk of tediousness, this last attack on Paley has been\ndetailed at great length, and placed (as the present writer believes)\nin several of its most formidable shapes[o]. But for additional\nsecurity of fair dealing with the strongest of all objections--one\nwhich, if established, would be a death-blow to all argument on the\nsubject (since its _ultimatum_ is unconditional surrender)--for these\nreasons, then, and in order to satisfy the most rigorous understanding,\nlet it be finally rehearsed in the words of a most eminent physicist\nwhom no one will accuse of haste, oversight, or credulity. To this\nrehearsal the Professor adds what is to us more important still,--his\njudgment on the point at issue.\n\nBut before quoting Professor Baden Powell, it may be worth while to\nmake two short notes on the few preceding paragraphs. Let us take the\nlast paragraph first.\n\nIt really does appear that marks of Design and the footprints of a\nDesigner are in common sense very nearly one and the same thing. If we\nconcentrate our attention on the former, we are looking at an object\non the side of certain properties,--that is, of certain subjectively\nperceived relations. For instance, we may think of the eye only as an\noptical instrument wonderfully constituted, and enumerate the parts of\nits visual apparatus. But the moment we speak of this apparatus as a\nprovision _intentionally_ made for sight, we have introduced the idea\nof a Designer in the strongest sense of the word. Now, it is difficult\nto think of anything as an example of intelligent arrangement, and\nat the same time give no hint even to our own thoughts of arranging\nIntelligence. We can hardly look through a pane of glass and admire the\nperfect transparency of _one_ surface to the exclusion of the _other_!\nWe are not now speaking of what _might_ be done, if attempted by a man\nso profoundly skilled in analytics that\n\n    \"He could distinguish, and divide\n    A hair 'twixt south and south-west side.\"\n\nWe are rather speaking of what it is _natural_ to do. And it may be\ndoubted whether anybody thinks of a design _as_ design very long\nwithout thinking also of the Designer.\n\nOne other remark is suggested by the reference to _process_ as\ncontradistinguished from _product_. Here, again, the real question\nis, How far is such a distinction maintainable in fact? Does it rest\nupon any definite separation in Nature? The exact contradictory is the\ntruth; taking the world as it is, the distinction, though clear in\nthought, becomes essentially fluent when objectively regarded. What\nwe call a production one moment, we say is a process the next. You\nhave, for example, a galvanic current, produced by certain chemical\ncombinations, and often a product _per se_ of some importance. Yet the\ncurrent itself is a part of the electrotyping process. Suppose this\ndone, you have your electrotype--your coin,--a hard fact,--a solid\nproduction, bright, beautiful, admirable! But we will suppose you,\nwhile devising all this, to have a further view;--the coin is to be\nemployed in the process of imposture. Here again comes a result--a\ngreat fraud committed; but this is not all. The fraudulent procedure\nturns out a very useful police-trap, and your chemical combination\nsends the last actor on the scene to Portland, for at least ten years.\nConsider in this brief history the scientific arrangements, material\nconditions, and workmanlike execution, discernible in its earlier\nparts; then, see how mind becomes gradually predominant, and how Law,\nbased on ideas of corrective justice, enters the series. Add the\njudge and jury, and you admit the force of intellect,--deliberating,\ndeciding, putting further activities in motion; till, perhaps, if the\nreformatory process succeeds, Portland may have the honour of giving to\nsociety the welcome product of (as times go) a passably honest man. We\nmight really frame a curious inquiry as respects this flowing tide of\nprocess and production, production and process, with its commingling\ncurrents and waves which seem to interrupt each other like circles of\ndiffracted light. We might ask which of all these parts of the moving\ndiorama is most distinctly human. I believe most people would say,\nthose scenes in which mind, not mere workmanship, is most evidently\ndiscernible.\n\nProfessor Powell seems to have thought so too. The difficulty we have\nbeen discussing he states as an objection requiring solution.[20]\n\n \"In those cases most nearly approaching the nature of human works,\n such as the varied and endless changes in matter going on in the\n _laboratory of nature_, the results, even when most analogous to those\n obtained in human laboratories, yet present no marks of the process or\n of the means employed, by which to recognise the analogous workman;\n and in all the grander productions, the incessant evolutions of\n vegetable and animal life, which no human laboratory can produce,--in\n the structure of earth and ocean, or the infinite expanse of the\n heavens and their transcendent mechanism, still further must we be\n from finding any analogy to the works of man, or, by consequence, any\n analogy to a personal individual artificer.\"\n\nThe next paragraph contains his own judgment.\n\n \"But the more just view of the case is that which arises from\n the consideration that the real evidence is that of _mind_ and\n _intelligence_; for here we have a proper and strict analogy. _Mind_\n directing the operations of the laboratory or the workshop, is no\n part of the _visible apparatus_, nor are its operations seen in\n _themselves_--they are visible only in their _effects_;--and from\n effects, however dissimilar in magnitude or in kind, yet agreeing\n in the one grand condition of _order_, _adjustment_, profound and\n recondite connexion and dependence, there is the same evidence and\n outward manifestation of INVISIBLE INTELLIGENCE, as vast and\n illimitable as the universe throughout which those manifestations are\n seen.\"\n\nThis second extract may be analysed into distinct propositions somewhat\nas follows:--\n\nIn a manufactory,--\n\nMind is no part of the visible apparatus--nor are its operations\nvisible,--\n\nBut the effects make the operations manifest.--\n\nIn the universe,--\n\nEffects may be seen differing from Human productions in many ways,--but\nagreeing in one common characteristic,--order--adjustment--hidden\ninterdependence.\n\nSuch effects make manifest the operation of an Invisible Intelligence\nas vast as the Universe itself.\n\nThe majority of people might suppose this a conclusive inference from\nNature to the Being of a Personal God. But Professor Powell does not\nso intend it; and therefore some readers may feel disposed to blame\nhis use of words. It is, however, only fair that before so doing, they\nshould carefully consider his whole mode of apprehending the subject in\nits completeness. And the easiest way of understanding Powell is, most\nprobably, to compare him with Paley.\n\nThe latter is confident that when he has derived the design and\narrangement of the world from a mind analogous to the mind of man, but\nimmeasurably vast as the Universe which man inhabits,--little more need\nbe said. He thinks the infinite intelligence thus demonstrated, is\nclearly no other than the Great First Cause, and Creator of all things.\n\"Contrivance, if established, appears to me to prove everything which\nwe wish to prove.\" This sentence begins Chap. xxiii., and the rest of\nPaley's Natural Theology is intended to demonstrate and verify its\ncorrectness.\n\nPowell thinks that the step from a mind or intelligence, even if\nconceived illimitable as the Universe, to a First Cause, Supreme Mind,\nor Moral Cause, is a very much longer ascent[p] than Paley thought it.\nBy these latter terms he meant--as Paley did--the Divine Personality\nbelieved in by Theists, and evidenced, _first_, as mind by a reign\nof law, order, and arrangement, so far as the world can evidence\nHim;--but manifest, _secondly_, in His higher nature as the fountain\nand originator of law--that is, a true Cause, a manifestation due to\nthe causal structure of our own human minds. The point of difference is\nthe length of the step to be taken from Law to Causation; but Powell\nagrees with his predecessor in asserting it, though arduous, to be\nabsolutely safe. The point he insists on is that we cannot take it by\na contemplation of the world without us only. \"Ever-present _mind_\" he\nsays,[21] \"is a direct inference from the universal order of nature,\nor rather only another mode of expressing it. But of the _mode_ of\nexistence of that mind we can infer nothing.\"\n\nFrom this view he draws conclusions in opposite directions.\nPantheism,[22] the co-existence or identification of mind with\nmatter, \"is at best a mere gratuitous hypothesis, and as such\nwholly unphilosophical in itself, and leading to many preposterous\nconsequences.\" There are also grounds on which Theism appears certain\nand Pantheism extravagant, absurd, and contradictory.[23] To see\nthese grounds we are to carry out the analogy given us by the common\ncharacteristics of order, adjustment, and interdependence visible\nthrough their effects as in the human workshop or laboratory, so, too,\nin the vast illimitable Universe, and described in our second extract\nas manifestations of Mind or invisible Intelligence. In the paragraph\nimmediately following that extract,[24] he continues:--\n\n \"It is by _analogy_ with the exercise of intellect, and the volition,\n or power of moral causation, of which we are conscious within\n ourselves, that we speak of the _Supreme Mind_ and _Moral Cause_ of\n the Universe, of whose operation, order, arrangement and adaptation,\n are the external manifestations. _Order_ implies what by _analogy_\n we call _intelligence_; subserviency to an observed end implies\n intelligence _foreseeing_ which by analogy, we call _Design_.\"\n\nThe last sentence of the paragraph now quoted is very remarkable.\nThe eminent writer directs attention to a distinction between two\nseveral inferences which can be drawn from the observed manifestations\nof Order, and of Foresight. From the first, he says, we infer\nIntelligence, from the latter we infer Design. It seems singular that\nPowell should have defined this distinction so clearly, and made no\nfurther use of it.\n\nHe might naturally have insisted upon the separate and diverse\nevidences thus afforded by the physical world. Amid the variety of\nhuman minds, some may feel impressed by the contemplation of Nature in\none of these ways, some in the other. To many persons the magnificent\nspectacle of a law-governed Universe, infinitely manifold yet\neverywhere harmonious, appears to justify the belief in one supreme\nReason and sovereign Will. Separate parts of this same Universe--or\nthe whole in its entirety of vastness--when considered as manifesting\npurpose--that is, intentional adaptation to separate ends or to one\nend--are to other minds a more convincing line of thought.\n\nWith many writers on Natural Theology the different shades of meaning\nimplied in the word Design[25] may prevent clearness of conception in\nthis respect. But our author (like Paley) appears to use this word in\nits strongest signification.\n\nAnd this usage of Powell's brings into view another point in his\nreasoning even more singular than the one to which we have just\nadverted. Surely, if in the natural world we observe the manifestations\nof an Intelligence foreseeing an End, and employing means in\nsubserviency to that end, it seems strange to conclude that respecting\nthe mode of existence of such Intelligence we can infer nothing,\nyet the words occur on the very next page. It would seem almost an\nimpossibility to suppose such a mind existing as anything less than a\nPersonality under the twofold aspect of a Reason and a Will. Paley's\ncommon sense drew this conclusion at once, and very profound thinkers\nhave agreed with Paley on the topic. \"That,\" says F. H. Jacobi, \"which,\nin opposition to Fate, makes God into a true God, is called Foresight.\nWhere it is, there alone is Reason; and where Reason is, there also is\nForesight. Foresight in itself is Spirit, and to that only which is of\nSpirit do those feelings of admiration, awe, and love, which announce\nits existence, correspond. We can indeed declare of any object that\nit is beautiful or perfect, without previously knowing how it became\nso, whether with or without the operation of Foresight;--but the power\nwhich caused it so to be, _that_ we cannot admire, if it produced the\nobject, without aim or purpose, according to laws of mere Necessity of\nNature.\"[26]\n\nIn point of fact Professor Powell was himself of the same opinion, for\nin another place he writes thus:--\n\n \"Now, the bare fact of order and arrangement is on all hands\n undisputed, though commonly most inadequately understood and\n appreciated.\n\n \"The inference of design, intention, forethought, is something\n _beyond_ the last mentioned truth, and not to be _confounded with it_.\n This implies intelligent agency, or moral causation. Hence again, we\n advance to the notion of distinct existence, or what is sometimes\n called personality; and thence proceed to ascribe the other Divine\n attributes and perfections as centring in that independent Being.\"[27]\n\nIt appears only just to the Archdeacon that we should notice this\nvariation of language on the part of his censor.[28] Of this variation\nitself the true account seems undoubtedly to be as follows. The writer\nwas engaged in tracing the progress of conviction in his own mind.\nHe first observes order, adjustment, interdependence, throughout\nthe Universe. Hence he is penetrated by the impression of pervading\nIntelligence. Next, he perceives that these results could never have\ntaken place unless foreseen and provided for by a designed subserviency\nof means to ends, and this convinces him of the Personality of that\nuniversal Mind. Finally, he draws, from the analysis of Causation, a\nfull definition of the great Originator of all things.\n\nThe fact, however, remains that each of these gradations of reasoning\nmay be stated just as easily and more logically as separate and\nconvergent lines of thought, because each can be rested on a separate\ncombination of proofs. But the elucidation of this subject cannot be\ncompressed into few words, and must be deferred to our fifth and sixth\nchapters.\n\nStill there is a very peculiar and special satisfaction in following\nthe path of argument which persuaded an acute and practised reasoner,\naccomplished in several departments of knowledge, and himself of a turn\nof mind which would appear naturally adapted to the utmost refinements\nof sceptical investigation. We shall, therefore, now return to our\ncomparison of Powell with his predecessor.\n\nThese two distinguished writers do, in fact, come at last to the\nsame conclusion. But they reach it through a difference in the paths\ntravelled over by such logic of evidence as may after all seem natural\nenough to a theological pleader on one side, and on the other to a\nscientific physicist.\n\nProfessor Powell, of course, leads us more deeply than his predecessor\ninto the thorny thickets surrounding Natural Theology. No one can read\nhis essays without remarking the subtlety of his thought, which to\nmany readers appears over refined, and to some as employed on points\nin themselves unimportant. Mr. Baden Powell's own deliberate judgment\nwas the other way, as we find from the last[29] of his considerable\nperformances on our subject. \"Points,\" he writes, \"which may be seen to\ninvolve the greatest difficulty to more profound inquirers, are often\nsuch as do not occasion the least perplexity to ordinary minds, but are\nallowed to pass without hesitation.... On the other hand, exceptions\nheld forth as fatal by the shallow caviller are seen by the more deeply\nreflecting in all their actual littleness and fallacy.\"\n\nWe may add that a subtle argument is often like a sharp thin blade,\ncutting clean into the very heart of a question. If it indeed prove\na home thrust, few things ought to be more fearlessly and cheerfully\nwelcomed by those who desire to dissect out the naked, intrinsic truth.\nWe will, therefore, dissect a little deeper, following the Professor's\ntrack of demonstration.\n\nWe find him, then, reaching down to a _septum_, or, as botanists prefer\nto speak, a strong dissepiment between a _law of Nature_ or _physical\ncausation_, and a _true Cause_ in the highest and most emphatic\nsense[q].\n\nSuch a separation is not to be sought from a writer of Paley's date,\nwhen the modern notion of law was unformed, or rather was in process\nof formation. Thus Newton's discoveries were thought by many persons\nirreligious, because the stability of the heavens appeared like\nsomething necessarily determined. Respecting this opinion, Powell\nobserves (and from his point of view with truth), that \"such necessity\nof reason is the highest proof of design.\" Paley, on the contrary,\nfelt inclined to despair of discovering much evidence of Design in\nAstronomy, but he looked upon the starry heavens as affording the\nmost ample and glorious confirmation of the agency of an intelligent\nCreator, when proved from some other source. In his next chapter (the\n23rd) he proceeds to reprehend the mistaken sense of law, growing up\namongst physicists in his own day. \"It will,\" he says, \"be made to take\nthe place of power, and still more, of intelligent power,\" and will\n\"be assigned for the cause of anything or of any property of anything\nthat exists.\" In this remark he shows his accustomed penetration. Law,\nantecedent and consequent, with their series of physical evolutions,\nhave been talked of by men who confuse physics and metaphysics, as\nif they could thereby account for a whole universe.[30] Now, from\nthis cloudy confusion[r], Professor Powell is exempt. He accepts (as\nobviously he must accept) the natural-science idea of law, which looks\nat it as an orderly expression of force, and tells us that \"law and\norder, physical causation and uniformity of action are the elevated\nmanifestations of Divinity, creation and providence.\"[31] But from\nthe conception of Mind or Intelligence thus given us, which, though\ninvisible to the eye, is yet, in its effects, plainly visible, he\ndistinguishes, over and over again, the idea of a true originating\nfirst Cause.[32] We see the necessity of a moral Cause as distinguished\nfrom a physical antecedent, when we survey Nature. But Nature does\nnot contain the idea in an explicit shape. She only necessitates its\nacceptance. This idea, we find, he tells us, manifest in our own moral\nnature,--by analogy we discern it in the Divine. He likewise severely\nblames those who commingle in words the two contrasted thoughts and\nlines of inference, and mentions Coleridge and Sterling[33] by way of\nexample. As concerns his own mode of establishing the idea of causation\nin its proper and peculiar force, Professor Powell agrees with a large\nnumber of metaphysicians, ancient and modern. It might seem superfluous\nto name as an instance the late Dean Mansel, were not a passage in his\n\"Prolegomena\" so full of good matter on the topic.[34]\n\nIn this view of causation, then, Powell advanced nothing new. But what\nhe did advance was really valuable. The man who can rise no higher than\nlaw or succession as he sees it impressed on outward nature, stands in\na totally different position from the man whose insight into Reason\nand Will has shown him the idea of true Causation. For, he has seen\nthat whoever is the author of his own act, does something which puts\nin movement a new series of antecedence and consequence,--a new train\nof events, the issue of which no man can foresee;--though of what has\ncome, and is coming, he, the individual man, is the truly responsible\ncause[s]. But if _he_ can introduce into the order of the outward world\na new antecedent carrying after it a chain of new consequents, what\nshall he think respecting the absolute Cause of all worlds, things and\nbeings, the thinker himself included? Who shall persuade him to deny\nthe reasonableness of a Providence following creation? Who can reprove\nthe man when he feels and asserts his own moral power, for a belief in\nMiracles? Above all, who will demonstrate that prayer is inefficacious,\nif we can rise (as Baden Powell says we can rise) \"by _analogy_\nwith the exercise of intellect, and the volition, or power of moral\ncausation, of which we are conscious within ourselves, to the Supreme\nMind and Moral Cause of the universe?\"\n\nIt is no slight praise to say that Professor Powell clearly saw,\nand no less clearly expressed, a truth not always apprehended among\nphysicists. By giving it expression, he rendered a substantial service\nto Natural Theology. It is, indeed, a serious drawback and impediment\nto Natural Theologians that their argument requires some acquaintance\nwith more than one wide field of knowledge. They have to reason from\nthe material world,--they have also to reason from the world of mind;\nand in countries like England, France, and Germany, where division of\nlabour penetrates every calling, literary as well as manufacturing, a\ncombination of this sort is a matter of infrequent occurrence. To this\nretarding circumstance may be ascribed the want of progress in several\nmixed sciences,[35] which, like the subject we are treating, occupy two\ndistinct tracts of border-land territory.\n\nThe separating wall between Law and Cause built up by Professor Powell,\nwas founded on fact, and will probably remain unshaken. But he added to\nit a theoretical limitation of the term, Natural Theology, which, like\nmany changes in verbal usage, does not appear defensible,--particularly\nas its bad effects are plainly shown in Professor Powell's own book.\n\nWithin two pages of the passage on Causation last quoted, he startles\nthe unwary reader by saying (p. 173) that \"Natural Theology confessedly\n'proves too little,' because it cannot rise to the metaphysical\nidea or scriptural representation of God.\" It is generally vain to\ninquire what may be meant by \"Metaphysical.\" Few people are aware\nthat everybody, learned or unlearned, talks metaphysics either well\nor ill; and usually (as M. Jourdain talked prose) without knowing it.\nThe epithet \"metaphysical\" figures often enough as another name for\nwhat is unintelligible;--and most Englishmen apply it to all \"ideas\"\nnot strictly commercial or practical. Here it seems to stand along\nwith Scripture, in opposition to Natural Theology; while the latter\nterm is in turn opposed to the science of the human mind. Yet does not\nPowell distinctly trace a Mind and Intelligence analogous to the mind\nand intelligence of Man, throughout the world of outward Nature; and\ndoes he not further determine that this same analogy, fairly carried\nout, leads to what he _now_ calls \"the metaphysical idea, or scriptural\nrepresentation of God?\" In other words, when discussing the question\nof Evidence, he finds Mind pervading outward Nature,--he treats Mind\nas the ordering and sovereign part of the Natural world, which visibly\nshows the effect of its invisible direction, and bids us follow up this\nhigher nature in its analogies to God, of Whose operation the order\nand arrangement of the Universe are external manifestations. But, when\nhe speaks of Natural Theology, that higher nature seems to disappear;\nintellect, volition, and the power of moral causation, slip out of\nsight, and are blotted from his catalogue of natural facts. Human\nnature must thus be treated as no part of universal Nature, in order\nthat a needlessly narrow and purely theoretical fence may be drawn\nround the science of Natural Theology! Natural Theology and Natural\nReligion are, in truth, terms originally adopted as mere antitheses\nto Revelation. The _first_ signifies what mankind might have known,\nor may know, of the Divine Being, prior to, or apart from, any direct\nmessage sent by Himself. The _second_ is intended to comprehend those\nrelations between that Divine Being and ourselves, which must ensue\nimmediately upon the acceptance of Theism.[36] The _ideas_ expressed by\nthese two terms are as old as Revelation itself,--a strong reason why\ntheir meaning should not be lightly altered.[37] But this antithetic\nusage was never intended to prejudge the question whether the results\nof Natural Theology and Religion do not coincide to a very great extent\nwith the teaching of revelation. Much less was there any idea of\nanswering this question in the negative, as a hasty reader of certain\nisolated passages in Professor Powell's book might easily be led to\nanswer it.[38]\n\nOur strictures may be aptly concluded by a quotation taken from another\nrecent writer. Professor Newman understands the evidence of Design in\nthe same breadth of meaning which we have attached to it. Under it he\ncomprehends the evidence of Mind naturally known to us, as may be seen\nby the following extracts:--\n\n \"A lung,\" says Mr. Newman,[39] \"bears a certain relation to the air,\n a gill to the water, the eye to light, the mind to truth, human\n hearts to one another: is it gratuitous and puerile to say that\n these relations imply design? There is no undue specification here,\n no antagonist argument, no intrusion of human artifice: we take the\n things fresh from nature. In saying that lungs _were intended_ to\n breathe, and eyes to see, we imply an argument from Fitness to Design,\n which carries conviction to the overwhelming majority of cultivated\n as well as uncultivated minds.... If such a fact stood alone in\n the universe, and no other existences _spoke of Design_, it would\n probably remain a mere enigma to us; but when the whole human world is\n pervaded by similar instances, not to see a Universal Mind in nature\n appears almost a brutal insensibility.... Of the physical structure\n of mind, no one pretends to know anything; but this does not weaken\n our conviction that the mind was meant to discern truth. Why should\n any philosopher resist this judgment? One thing might justify him;\n namely, if there were strong _\u00e0 priori_ reasons for disbelieving that\n Mind exists anywhere except in man. But the case is just the reverse.\n That puny beings who are but of yesterday, and presently disappear,\n should alone possess that which of all things is highest and most\n wonderful, is _\u00e0 priori_ exceedingly unplausible. As Socrates and\n Cicero have pointedly asked: 'Whence have we picked it up?' Its source\n is not in ourselves: there must surely be a source beyond us. Thus the\n tables are turned: we must _prim\u00e2 facie_ expect to find Mind in the\n Universe, acting on some stupendous scale, and of course imperfectly\n understood by us. Consequently, such Fitnesses as meet our view on all\n sides bring a reasonable conviction that Design lies beneath them. To\n confess this, is to confess the doctrine of an _intelligent Creator_,\n although we pretend not to understand anything concerning the mode,\n stages, or time of Creation. _Adding now the conclusions drawn\n from the Order of the universe_, we have testimony, adapted to the\n cultivated judgment, that there is a Boundless, Eternal, Unchangeable,\n Designing Mind, not without whom this system of things coheres: and\n this Mind we call GOD.\"\n\nTo take stumbling-blocks out of the reader's way has been the main\nobject of this Chapter. It has discussed the meaning and force of\nseveral words. The discussion may have seemed somewhat intricate,--but\nif honest, and, so far as it goes, thorough, no one will deny its\nutility. For facts are known to us as words, and words are facts to\nour intellect, since they express our apprehension of objects. They\nare, in brief, the interpreters of a world-wide human consciousness.\nAnd in the strength of consciousness our knowledge stands, if it does\nstand;--unfaithful to consciousness, it must fall, and ought to die the\ndeath of a traitor.[40]\n\nThe word most discussed has been that one upon which turns the best\nknown argument by Natural Theology--\"Design.\" We trust also, that it\nmay hereafter gain additional clearness under sidelights from other\ntrains of thought.[41] And what next follows will be essentially a\ndiscussion of thoughts and things--in which words are to be treated\nless as their representatives, and more as our servants and implements.\nFor this Chapter will have been written to very little purpose if the\nreader has failed to perceive that Natural Theology[42] includes at\nthe very least two distinct elements--two separate sets of premises\ndrawn from different sources. One of these factors rests upon our\nhuman knowledge of the natural world we live in--the other requires a\ndeeper kind of knowledge, and one far less cultivated upon inductive\nprinciples--the knowledge, that is to say, of our own nature--our\nessential humanity and self-ness.\n\nThe investigation of this last element is of paramount importance for\nthe purpose we have in hand, since, without some ascertained principles\nand conditions of truth, men may fold their hands and view all behind\nand above the moving diorama of present impressions as ideas sublime\nbut hopeless[43]--too high for us, who surely can never attain to\nthem. The plan, therefore, of this essay is to take from the point now\nreached a fresh start--to set out, not from a consideration of what we\nmay desire to know, but of how much or how little can be known, and the\nconditions of our knowing it.\n\nAn honest wish to be sure of one single thing soon shows us the\nimpediments we meet in making quite sure of anything. Soon, also, we\npainfully learn that these impediments arise from _two_ persistent sets\nof causes. Difficulties on the one hand occasioned by the obscurity,\ncomplication, or many-sidedness of objects actually existing _in\nrerum natur\u00e2_. Difficulties on the other hand, which, like barnacles\nand remor\u00e6 attached to a good ship's wooden bottom, act as drags\nand retardations on our own apprehending faculties. Barnacle-like,\nthey can only be kept at a distance or detached by carefully-devised\ncontrivances. And these again give rise to troubles of other\nkinds,--just as copper-sheathed keels or iron vessels are not without\ntheir drawbacks.\n\nThe inquiry we propose will have a great collateral advantage, both to\nhim who doubts and to him who accepts Theism. For we shall at least\nget rid of what may fairly be termed a stupid prejudice. Persons who\nread and think little, are apt to base upon their own ignorance a vague\npresumption that the path of knowledge is plain and easy, until men\ntry to know God. _Then_ all is hard; the pleasant path becomes a rough\nand toilsome road. Others who read, but think less than they read,\nare aware that very real obstacles beset all deep inquiry, yet form\nhazy and imperfect notions as to the true extent of those obstacles.\nThey little think how often we are all obliged to accept and maintain\nfirst truths;--difficulties objective, and difficulties subjective,\nnotwithstanding.\n\nOf one practical conclusion resulting from these difficulties, we\nmay feel assured beforehand. Many objects of the greatest interest\nand importance to truth can never be truly known as they are in\nthemselves;--our utmost hope is to know, not them, but as much as we\ncan discover respecting them. And sometimes this limited knowledge is\ninvaluable. If it does not gratify our natural desire for speculation,\nit may often guide and govern our lives. Unspeakably important, for\nexample, in itself and in its consequences, must be an affirmative\nanswer to our anxious question concerning the existence of a God.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nCOROLLARY.--It plainly appears from what has been said, that\nthe knowledge of an \"efficient cause\" (in physics) does not, and\ncannot, at all preclude the inquiry after a purpose or \"final cause\";\nbut, on the contrary, leads to its investigation. In a watch's action,\nthe former is represented by the moving power--that is, the spring; the\nlatter, by the watch's function--that of indicating hours, minutes,\nand seconds. Would any uninformed person, examining a watch for the\nfirst time, and knowing no more than what he sees,--be able to give to\nhimself any real account of the watch, if spring, train of wheel-work,\nand pointers, were shown him; but _no_ hint given of the purpose and\nobject of the _whole_ construction? Now, to tell him this, would be\nto convey the _idea_,--a principle which resides in Mind, and in Mind\nalone;--and, so residing, leads to intelligent adaptation;--that is,\na law or laws apprehended by the active exercise of certain mental\nfaculties.\n\nLet the intelligent reader ask himself whether _any_ functional\nstructure can be comprehended on _any_ lower terms?--As however this\nlatter question will be fully discussed further on, it is unnecessary\nto say more respecting it at present.\n\n\nADDITIONAL NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER II.\n\n\nA.--ON THE ABSTRACT REASONINGS INVOLVED IN NATURAL THEOLOGY.\n\nIn his discourse on Natural Theology, Lord Brougham writes thus (p.\n78):--\"The whole reasoning proceeds necessarily upon the assumption\nthat there exists a being or thing separate from, and independent of,\nmatter, and conscious of its own existence, which we call _mind_. For\nthe argument is, 'Had I to accomplish this purpose, I should have used\nsome such means'; or, 'Had I used these means, I should have thought\nI was accomplishing some such purpose.' Perceiving the adaptation of\nthe means to the end, the inference is, that some being has acted\nas we should ourselves act, and with the same views. But when we so\nspeak, and so reason, we are all the while referring to an intelligent\nprinciple or existence; we are referring to our mind, and not to our\nbodily frame.\"... \"The belief that mind exists is essential to the\nwhole argument by which we infer that the Deity exists. This belief ...\nis the foundation of Natural Theology in all its branches; and upon\nthe scheme of materialism no rational, indeed no intelligible, account\ncan be given of a first cause, or of the creation or government of the\nuniverse.\"\n\nIn a foot-note, Lord Brougham adds:--\"It is worthy of observation that\nnot the least allusion is made in Dr. Paley's work to the argument here\nstated, although it is the foundation of the whole of Natural Theology.\nNot only does this author leave entirely untouched the argument _\u00e0\npriori_ (as it is called), and also all the inductive arguments derived\nfrom the phenomena of mind, but he does not even advert to the argument\nupon which the inference of design must of necessity rest--that design\nwhich is the whole subject of his book. Nothing can more evince his\ndistaste or incapacity for metaphysical researches. He assumes the very\nposition which alone sceptics dispute. In combating him they would\nassert that he begged the whole question; for certainly they do not\ndeny, at least in modern times, the _fact_ of adaptation. As to the\nfundamental doctrine of causation, not the least allusion is ever made\nto it in any of his writings,--even in his Moral Philosophy.\"\n\nIt is when reviewing this last-named treatise that Dr. Whewell remarks\n(History of Moral Philosophy, p. 169):--\n\n\"The fact is that Paley had no taste, and therefore we may be allowed\nto say that he had little aptitude, for metaphysical disquisitions.\nIn this there would have been no blame, if he had not entered into\nspeculations which, if they were not metaphysically right, must be\naltogether wrong. We often hear persons declare that they have no\nesteem for metaphysics, and intend to shun all metaphysical reasonings;\nand this is usually the prelude to some specimen of very _bad_\nmetaphysics: for I know no better term by which to designate the\nprocess of misunderstanding and confounding those elements of truth\nwhich are supplied by the relations of our own ideas. That Paley had no\nturn or talent for the reasoning which depends on such relations, is\nplain enough.\"\n\nThe reader may with little trouble collect for himself what is meant\nby bad metaphysics from the following extracts. The first is Lord\nMacaulay's criticism on the metaphysics of the Schools, which he\nintroduces into his essay on Francis Bacon, as follows:--\n\n\"By stimulating men to the discovery of useful truth, he\" (Bacon)\n\"furnished them with a motive to perform the inductive process\nwell and carefully. His predecessors had been, in his phrase, not\ninterpreters, but anticipators of nature. They had been content with\nthe first principles at which they had arrived by the most scanty and\nslovenly induction. And why was this? It was, we conceive, because\ntheir philosophy proposed to itself no practical end--because it was\nmerely an exercise of the mind. A man who wants to contrive a new\nmachine or a new medicine has a strong motive to observe accurately\nand patiently, and to try experiment after experiment. But a man who\nmerely wants a theme for disputation or declamation has no such motive.\nHe is therefore content with premises grounded on assumption, or on\nthe most scanty and hasty induction. Thus, we conceive, the schoolmen\nacted. On their foolish premises they often argued with great ability;\nand as their object was \"assensum subjugare, non res\" (Nov. Org. I.\nAph. 29), to be victorious in controversy, not to be victorious over\nnature, they were consistent. For just as much logical skill could be\nshown in reasoning on false as on true premises.\"[44] Of course, if\nany genuine metaphysical philosophy exists at all, its right and real\nobject must be to try and discover true premises of the more abstract\nsort--premises, the truth of which affects the procedure of all the\nancillary series.[45]\n\nOur next quotation contains Hume's sentence of execution rather than\ncritique upon metaphysics as he saw them in connection with dogmatic\ntheology. First, for his fiery anathema:--\n\n\"When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc\nmust we make? If we take in our hand any volume of divinity or School\nmetaphysics, for instance, let us ask, _Does it contain any abstract\nreasoning concerning quantity or number?_ No. _Does it contain any\nexperimental reasoning concerning matters of fact and existence?_ No.\nCommit it then to the flames: For it can contain nothing but sophistry\nand illusion.\" (Inquiry concerning Human Understanding, \u00a7 XII.) Alas\nfor certain of Hume's own speculations!\n\nThe student of Positivism knows how this fierce invective was echoed\nand re-echoed by Comte and his followers. They, however, omitted the\nqualifying word \"School,\" which Hume prefixed to metaphysics. With\nComte, metaphysic of every kind was \"anathema maranatha\"; and even\npsychology got excommunicated, by way of making \"a clean sweep.\"\n\nHume, on the contrary, had an idea of what philosophy ought to be, and\nthus outlined his preparation for a Metaphysic of the Future:--\n\n\"The only method of freeing learning, at once, from these abstruse\nquestions, is to inquire seriously into the nature of human\nunderstanding, and show, from an exact analysis of its powers and\ncapacity, that it is by no means fitted for such remote and abstruse\nsubjects. We must submit to this fatigue in order to live at ease ever\nafter: and must cultivate true metaphysics with some care, in order to\ndestroy the false and adulterate. Indolence, which, to some persons,\naffords a safeguard against this deceitful philosophy, is, with others,\noverbalanced by curiosity; and despair, which at some moments prevails,\nmay give place afterwards to sanguine hopes and expectations. Accurate\nand just reasoning is the only catholic remedy, fitted for all persons\nand all dispositions; and is alone able to subvert that abstruse\nphilosophy and metaphysical jargon, which, being mixed up with\npopular superstition, renders it in a manner impenetrable to careless\nreasoners, and gives it the air of science and wisdom.\n\n\"Besides this advantage of rejecting, after deliberate inquiry, the\nmost uncertain and disagreeable part of learning, there are many\npositive advantages, which result from an accurate scrutiny into the\npowers and faculties of human nature. It is remarkable concerning\nthe operations of the mind, that though most intimately present to\nus, yet, whenever they become the object of reflection, they seem\ninvolved in obscurity; nor can the eye readily find those lines and\nboundaries which discriminate and distinguish them. The objects are\ntoo fine to remain long in the same aspect or situation, and must be\napprehended, in an instant, by a superior penetration, derived from\nnature, and improved by habit and reflection. It becomes, therefore, no\ninconsiderable part of science barely to know the different operations\nof the mind, to separate them from each other, to class them under\ntheir proper heads, and to correct all that seeming disorder in which\nthey lie involved, when made the object of reflection and inquiry.\nThis task of ordering and distinguishing, which has no merit when\nperformed with regard to external bodies, the objects of our senses,\nrises in its value when directed towards the operations of the mind,\nin proportion to the difficulty and labour which we meet with in\nperforming it. And if we can go no farther than this mental geography,\nor delineation of the distinct parts and powers of the mind, it is at\nleast a satisfaction to go so far; and the more obvious this science\nmay appear (and it is by no means obvious), the more contemptible still\nmust the ignorance of it be esteemed, in all pretenders to learning and\nphilosophy.\" Ibid. Section I.\n\nIt seems worth while to consider what the effects might have been, had\nHume been faithful to his own idea.[46] In the first place he would\nhave remedied the weakness pointed out by Macaulay in the premises of\nthe schoolmen, which were in fact little better than sententious maxims\noften derived from mistranslated passages of Scripture, one-sided\nopinions of the Fathers, and other sources of doubtful value. These,\nHume would have abscided altogether, and rested his \"true metaphysics\"\nupon such principles as survived a searching inquiry into the\nconditions of Human knowledge. Hence, secondly, he would have rendered\na great service to Divinity itself, which can never be benefited\nby such arguments as have been described, but must look for a safe\nalliance to a synthesis of Faith and Reason. And in the third place he\nmight have probably given to his country a critical Philosophy adapted\nto English modes of Thought. Kant's mind was fired by a spark of\nHume's kindling, but when we think what might have been the shape and\nacceptance of Kant in this country had Hume heralded him by a critique\nof Reason, it is impossible to read the great Scotchman's writings\nwithout a feeling of disappointment.[47]\n\nIt would however be unjust to omit the fact that Hume did really\nentertain a serious intention of dealing with these difficult\nquestions. Thus much is expressed in his earliest work, and we may\nconjecture that literary disappointment was at least one cause of that\nlater preference for \"easy philosophy\" which contrasts so strongly with\nthe programme of his treatise on Human Nature. Few programmes were ever\nmore vigorously outlined, than the ensuing.\n\n\"From hence,\" he says, \"in my opinion, arises that common prejudice\nagainst metaphysical reasonings of all kinds, even amongst those\nwho profess themselves scholars, and have a just value for every\nother part of literature. By metaphysical reasonings, they do not\nunderstand those on any particular branch of science, but every kind of\nargument, which is any way abstruse, and requires some attention to be\ncomprehended. We have so often lost our labour in such researches, that\nwe commonly reject them without hesitation, and resolve, if we must for\never be a prey to errors and delusions, that they shall at least be\nnatural and entertaining. And, indeed, nothing but the most determined\nscepticism, along with a great degree of indolence, can justify this\naversion to metaphysics. For, if truth be at all within the reach\nof human capacity, 'tis certain it must lie very deep and abstruse;\nand to hope we shall arrive at it without pains, while the greatest\ngeniuses have failed with the utmost pains, must certainly be esteemed\nsufficiently vain and presumptuous. I pretend to no such advantage\nin the philosophy I am going to unfold, and would esteem it a strong\npresumption against it, were it so very easy and obvious.\"--Treatise on\nHuman Nature, Introduction, p. 12.\n\nIn these sentences Hume has sufficiently condemned the vulgar\nobjections brought against abstract reasoning. Deep and difficult\nquestions can be discussed in no other manner; and what is often called\na popular treatise on some subject of philosophic inquiry can never\nbe more than a statement of its writer's opinions, or possibly of his\nsentimental prejudices.\n\nThe next paragraph contains Hume's earliest[48] sketch of that critical\ninquiry into Human Nature on which he proposed to base all future\nphilosophy. It is of course deeply interesting.\n\n\"'Tis evident that all the sciences have a relation, greater or\nless, to human nature; and that however wide any of them may seem to\nrun from it, they still return back by one passage or another. Even\n_Mathematics_, _Natural Philosophy_, and _Natural Religion_, are in\nsome measure dependent on the science of MAN; since they lie\nunder the cognizance of men, and are judged of by their powers and\nfaculties.\n\n\"'Tis impossible to tell what changes and improvements we might make in\nthese sciences were we thoroughly acquainted with the extent and force\nof human understanding, and could explain the nature of the ideas we\nemploy, and of the operations we perform in our reasonings. And these\nimprovements are the more to be hoped for in natural religion, as it\nis not content with instructing us in the nature of superior powers,\nbut carries its views further, to their disposition towards us, and our\nduties towards them; and consequently we ourselves are not only the\nbeings that reason, but also one of the objects concerning which we\nreason.\"\n\n\"If, therefore, the sciences of mathematics, natural philosophy, and\nnatural religion, have such a dependence on the knowledge of man,\nwhat may be expected in the other sciences, whose connection with\nhuman nature is more close and intimate?... In these four sciences of\n_Logic_, _Morals_, _Criticism_, and _Politics_, is comprehended almost\neverything which it can any way import us to be acquainted with, or\nwhich can tend either to the improvement or ornament of the human mind.\n\n\"Here then is the only expedient, from which we can hope for success in\nour philosophical researches, to leave the tedious lingering method,\nwhich we have hitherto followed, and instead of taking now and then a\ncastle or village on the frontier, to march up directly to the capital\nor centre of these sciences, to human nature itself; which being once\nmasters of, we may everywhere else hope for an easy victory. From this\nstation we may extend our conquests over all those sciences which more\nintimately concern human life, and may afterwards proceed at leisure\nto discover more fully those which are the objects of pure curiosity.\nThere is no question of importance, whose decision is not comprised\nin the science of man; and there is none, which can be decided with\nany certainty, before we become acquainted with that science. In\npretending, therefore, to explain the principles of human nature, we in\neffect propose a complete system of the sciences, built on a foundation\nalmost entirely new, and the only one upon which they can stand with\nany security.\"[49] Ibid. pp. 13-14.\n\nThe present writer has a special interest in citing these passages,\nbecause they do in fact defend as well as describe the procedure of his\nvery next chapter.\n\nSuch then at an early age was Hume's keen-edged critical appreciation\nof those intellectual conditions required for a Philosophy of the\nSciences, or as he calls it, the \"true Metaphysics.\" In order to\nsupplement his clever and clear idea by a very practical delineation\nof the metaphysical territory, we turn to another great thinker, the\nfounder of our modern natural science, the great Lord Verulam.[50]\n\nBacon divides Philosophy according to its objects, which are\nthree,--God, Nature, Man. Take, then, Natural Philosophy; it is well\nsaid that the truth of nature lies deeply hidden, and it is also well\nsaid that the Producer imitates Nature. Natural Philosophy divides\nitself accordingly into the inquisition of causes and the production\nof effects; it is both speculative and operative. There is indeed\nan intercourse between causes and effects, and both these kinds of\nknowledge. All true and fruitful Natural Philosophy has a double scale\nor ladder,--ascendent and descendent; ascending from experiment to\nfirst causes; descending thence to fresh experiment and always fresh\nproductiveness.[51]\n\nThe ascending half is divided into two moieties, of which one is the\nscience of Physics, the other of Metaphysics. In distinguishing these\ntwo, Bacon so far agrees with antiquity as to say,--\"That Physic\nsupposes in nature only a being and moving and natural necessity;\nwhereas Metaphysic supposes also a Mind and Idea. For that which I\nshall say comes perhaps to this.\"[52] Or, to put it in another light,\nhe writes elsewhere:--\"Physique, taking it according to the derivation,\nand not according to our idiom for medicine, is situate in a middle\nterm or distance between natural history and Metaphysique. For natural\nhistory describeth the variety of things; Physique, the causes, but\nvariable or respective causes; and Metaphysique, the fixed and constant\ncauses.\"[53]\n\nIn order to clear the way for _his_ Metaphysic of the future, Bacon\nsubjects what had been called by that name to a critical process. He\nseparates from it a kind of theoretical philosophy, the attainment\nof which he considered doubtful, though he desired that it should be\nattempted, as the ultimate goal of human wisdom. The object of the\nseparation is, therefore, to leave his metaphysical science within the\nlimits of what is certainly attainable,--a fact not to be lost sight of\nin its relation to the abstract subjects in which we are now specially\ninterested. The separated realm of knowledge Bacon calls \"First and\nSummary Philosophy\"; it is a \"common ancestor to all knowledge,\"[54]\nwhereas Metaphysic belongs to the philosophy of Nature. It is at the\napex of his pyramid of knowledges,[55]--the basis being a collection of\nnatural facts--the \"stage next the basis,\" (an investigation of causes\nvariable and immersed in material existence,) is called \"Physique--the\nstage next the vertical point is Metaphysique.\"[56] To enter clearly\ninto Bacon's meaning, two questions should be answered: one, what was\nthe wisdom that older Metaphysicians pursued, respecting which he did\nnot himself feel sanguine? and the other, what remained in his thought\nthe province of practical Metaphysique?\n\nIt is obvious that a wisdom which shall gather up all that every other\nrealm of wisdom produces, cast it into Thought's winepress, and extract\nthe rarest vintage of Truth, has been the vision of every age since men\nbegan to inquire and to reason. If this wisdom were possible, it would\nbecome to us an alphabet of the Universe; we should obtain a clear\ninsight into the world as it is, and the foregone work of its Creator.\nEach of us might truthfully say:--\n\n    \"Der du die Welt umschweifst,\n    Gesch\u00e4ftiger Geist, wie nah' f\u00fchl ich mich dir!\"\n\nIt needs but a glance at Bacon's indefinite outline of a First and\nSummary Philosophy,[57] to see that it must always be greeted by two\nopposite sentences of condemnation. A large section of its censors\nwill pronounce the meagreness of its contents \"a gentle riddance,\"\nor perhaps describe the contents themselves still more harshly as\n\"rubbish shot here.\" Another section may compare all that it leaves\nfor Metaphysics to the year without its spring, or Shakespeare's\nmasterpiece of philosophy with the part of Hamlet left out.\n\nLet us see then how the reserved province was parcelled out.--Bacon\nhimself remarks:--\"It may fairly therefore now be asked, what is left\nremaining for Metaphysic? Certainly nothing beyond nature; but of\nnature itself much the most excellent part.\" Most excellent because\n\"Physic handles that which is most inherent in matter and therefore\ntransitory, and Metaphysic that which is more abstracted and fixed.\nAnd again, that Physic supposes in nature only a being and moving\nand natural necessity: whereas Metaphysic supposes also a mind and\nidea.\"[58]\n\nThis search into the Mind of Nature is divided into the investigation\nof _two_ kinds of causes, still called the Formal and the Final.\nBacon's doctrine of Forms--the Philosophy in which is embraced \"Natura\nnaturans\"--nature engendering nature--the Queen of Art--and the Regent\nof Production, constitutes one of the most difficult parts of the\nNovum Organum, the Advancement, and the De Augmentis; and may have\nbeen one chief provocative to King James' irreverent similitude. It\nmight, according to some writers, even now prove a veritable \"peace\nof God\" could we only grasp its full meaning. \"From the discovery\nof Forms,\" says Bacon, \"results truth in speculation and freedom in\noperation.\"[59] And his latest commentator believes that this field of\ndiscovery has not been truly explored, because its very idea has been\nonly imperfectly apprehended. The whole question, however, belongs to\na future Chapter of this Essay, where we propose examining the Law of\nProduction in its most refined and abstract shape. Yet one further\nremark may be allowed here. According to Francis Bacon, one \"respect\nwhich ennobles this part of Metaphysic, is that it enfranchises the\npower of men to the greatest liberty, and leads it to the widest and\nmost extensive field of operation.... For physical causes give light\nand direction to new inventions in similar matter. But whosoever knows\nany Form, knows also the utmost possibility of superinducing that\nnature upon every variety of matter, and so is less restrained and tied\nin operation, either to the basis of the matter or to the condition of\nthe efficient.\"[60]\n\nWe are more concerned, at the present stage of this Essay, with\nthe _second_ portion of Bacon's Metaphysique--the Inquiry into\nFinal Causes. They are described in the Advancement as not having\nbeen neglected before its great Author's time, but as having been\n\"misplaced.\" \"For they are,\" he writes in the De Augm. (E. & S. iv.\np. 363) \"generally sought for in Physic, and not in Metaphysic. And\nyet if it were but a fault in order I should not think so much of it;\nfor order is matter of illustration, but pertains not to the substance\nof sciences. But this misplacing has caused a notable deficience, and\nbeen a great misfortune to Philosophy. For the handling of final causes\nin Physics has driven away and overthrown the diligent inquiry of\nphysical causes.\"... \"And I say this, not because those final causes\nare not true and worthy to be inquired in metaphysical speculations;\nbut because their excursions and irruptions into the limits of physical\ncauses has bred a waste and solitude in that track. For otherwise, if\nthey be but kept within their proper bounds, men are extremely deceived\nif they think there is any enmity or repugnancy at all between the\ntwo.\" (Ibid. p. 364.) Bacon's meaning is indeed clear enough to those\nwho consider his examples. We do not learn how clouds are produced by\nbeing told they serve for watering the earth. It is no history of our\nearth itself, to say that its \"solidness is for the station and mansion\nof living creatures.\" \"To know the actual nature of a thing,\" observes\nan Oxford commentator on the Organum, \"we must investigate it in and\nfor itself, not for its results.\"[61]\n\nPerhaps one of the most curious facts relating to the \"misplacement\"\nof Final Causes is that few more flagrant instances of that abuse can\nbe found than some which occur in the field, not of physical but of\nmoral science. The following remarkable example is from an argument\nframed by Mr. James Mill against Sir J. Macintosh, which appears all\nthe more worthy of quotation, because it is reproduced and approved by\nMr. J. Stuart Mill. The whole argument deserves perusal as showing how\neasily an acquired and customary kind of association will sometimes\npredominate over free thought; but for our present object a few\npassages will suffice. The italics are not Mr. Mill's, but are here\nmarked for the purpose of guiding the reader's eye to those steps\nwhich lead from _final cause_ (or motive) to _interest_, from interest\nto Utility in its grossest form, the artificial creation, namely,\nof our spur to interested action, dignified by this author with the\nsacred name of Morality, both in essence, _i.e._, what makes an act\nto be moral--and in respect of our moral sense, _i.e._, what are the\nsentiments with which we regard our own actions and those of other\npersons.\n\n\"Men make classifications, as they do everything else, for some end.\nNow, for what _end_ was it that men, out of their innumerable acts,\nselected a class, to which they gave the name of moral, and another\nclass, to which they gave the name of immoral? What was the motive of\nthis act? What its final cause?\n\n\"Assuredly the answer to this question is the first step, though\nSir James saw it not, towards the solution of his two questions,\ncomprehending the _whole_ of ethical science; first, what _makes_ an\nact to be _moral?_ and, secondly, what are the _sentiments_ with which\nwe _regard_ it?\n\n\"We may also be assured, that it was some very obvious _interest_ which\nrecommended this classification; for it was performed, in a certain\nrough way, in the _very rudest_ states of society.\n\n\"Farther, we may easily see how, even in very rude states, men were led\nto it, by little less than necessity.... They had no stronger interest\nthan to obtain the repetition of the one sort, and to prevent the\nrepetition of the other.... And here we clearly perceive the origin of\nthat important case of classification, the classification of acts as\n_moral_ and _immoral_. The acts, which it was _important_ to other men\nthat each individual should _perform_, but in which the individual had\nnot a sufficient _interest_ to secure the performance of them, were\nconstituted one class. The acts, which it was _important_ to other men\nthat each individual should _abstain from_, but in regard to which\nhe had not a personal _interest_ sufficiently strong to secure his\nabstaining from them, were constituted another class. The first class\nwere distinguished by the name _moral_ acts; the second by the name\n_immoral_.\n\n\"The _interest_ which men had in securing the performance of the one\nset of acts, the non-performance of the other, led them by a sort of\nnecessity to think of the _means_. They had to _create_ an interest,\nwhich the actor would not otherwise have, in the performance of the\none sort, the non-performance of the other. And in proceeding to\nthis end, they could not easily miss their way. They had two powers\napplicable to the purpose. They had a certain quantity of good at\ntheir disposal, and they had a certain quantity of evil.... And this\nis the scheme which they adopted; and which, in every situation, they\nhave invariably pursued. _The whole business of the moral sentiments_,\nmoral approbation, and disapprobation, has this for its _object_,--the\ndistribution of the good and evil we have at command, for the\n_production_ of acts of the _useful_ sort, the _prevention_ of acts of\nthe _contrary_ sort. Can there be a nobler _object_?\"[62]\n\nSome people may think that all nobleness is here taken away from moral\ndistinctions. Others may wonder how such refined calculation could\ntake place \"in the very rudest states of Society.\" Many more will feel\nthat _this_ factitious interest is _not_ the moral sentiment of which\nthey are themselves conscious. We defer these points, however, to a\nfuture chapter, and are satisfied now with calling attention to the\n\"misplacement\" of final causes. To any modern versed (as Bacon was)\nin the wisdom of the medi\u00e6val schools, the following parallel might\nappear complete. Ask two questions--what are clouds?--what are moral\ndistinctions?--let a \"why\" be substituted for the \"what.\" Both are\nclassified by men, both may be defined by their subserviency to _human\ninterests_,--it is sufficient to discover some use in each. Moral\ndistinctions exist for the benefit of society, clouds are for watering\nthe earth. An earth-watering contrivance describes not only one use but\nthe whole nature of a cloud; and for morality can a nobler definition\nbe found than that of a notion invented and named on Utilitarian\nprinciples and promoting a public interest?[63] Doubtless morality\ndoes benefit mankind--doubtless clouds do water the earth. But in\neither case is the good effect its full and comprehensive \"why?\"--to\nsay nothing of the desiderated \"what?\"\n\n\nFrancis Bacon (as we have seen) strongly affirmed that between Physical\nCauses and Final Causes \"kept within their proper bounds, men are\nextremely deceived if they think there is any enmity or repugnancy\nat all.\" The manner in which, according to the Baconian doctrine,\nthese two sets of causes harmonize and supplement each other, so as\nconjointly to subserve the highest purpose of Natural Theology, cannot\nbe better explained than in the words of Bacon's late lamented Editor,\nMr. R. Leslie Ellis:--\n\n\"It is not sufficiently remarked that final causes have often been\nspoken of without any reference to a benevolent intention. When it is\nsaid that the final cause of a stone's falling is 'locus deorsum,'\nthe remark is at least but remotely connected with the doctrine of an\nintelligent providence. We are to remember that Bacon has expressly\ncensured Aristotle for having made use of final causes without\nreferring to the fountain from which they flow, namely the providence\nof the Creator. And in this censure he has found many to concur.\n\n\"Again, in any case in which the benevolent intention can be perceived,\nwe are at liberty to ask by what means and according to what laws\nthis benevolent intention is manifested and made efficient. If this\nquestion is not to be asked, there is in the first place an end of\nphysical science, so far as relates to every case in which a benevolent\nintention has been or can be recognised; and in the second, the\nargument \u00e0 posteriori founded on the contrivance displayed in the works\nof creation is entirely taken away.\n\n\"This is, in effect, what Bacon says in the passage of the _De\nAugmentis_, in which he complains of the abuse of final causes. If,\nhe affirms, the physical cause of any phenomenon can be assigned as\nwell as the final, so far is this from derogating from our idea of\nthe divine wisdom, that on the contrary it does but confirm and exalt\nit.\"[64]\n\nBefore passing from this subject the reader's attention may be drawn\nto two notes by the same eminent commentator. Bacon remarks (Nov.\nOrg. I. 48) that Final Causes are \"ex natur\u00e2 hominis\" _i.e._, have\nrelation to the nature of Man. \"It is difficult,\" writes Mr. Ellis, \"to\nassent to the assertion that the notion of the final cause, considered\ngenerally, is more ex natur\u00e2 hominis than that of the efficient. The\nsubject is one of which it is difficult to speak accurately; but it may\nbe said that wherever we think that we recognise a tendency towards a\nfulfilment or realisation of an idea, there the notion of the final\ncause comes in. It can only be from inadvertence that Professor Owen\nhas set the doctrine of the final cause as it were in antithesis to\nthat of the unity of type: by the former he means the doctrine that the\nsuitability of an animal to its mode of life is the one thing aimed\nat or intended in its structure. It cannot be doubted that Aristotle\nwould have recognised the preservation of the type as not less truly a\nfinal cause than the preservation of the species or than the well-being\nof the individual. The final cause connects itself with what in the\nlanguage of modern German philosophy is expressed by the phrase 'the\nIdea in Nature.'\"[65]\n\nThe epigrammatic comparison of a Final Cause to a consecrated\nVirgin[66] has been reviewed by numberless disciples as well as critics\nof our author. Mr. Ellis annotates the Latin text thus:--\"_Nihil\nparit_, means simply, _non parit opera_, which though it would have\nbeen a more precise mode of expression would have destroyed the\nappositeness of the illustration. No one who fairly considers the\ncontext can, I think, have any doubts as to the limitation with\nwhich the sentence in question is to be taken. But it is often the\nmisfortune of a pointed saying to be quoted apart from any context, and\nconsequently to be misunderstood.\" And this seems to be a scholarly\nexplanation.[67]\n\nTo complete the sketch of Baconian Metaphysic it appears only needful\nto add that his respect for the science of Quantity is sufficient to\nmake him class under this higher philosophy--this near approach to the\napex of his Pyramid--the whole circle of Mathematics.\n\nOur long note will not have been written in vain if the reader bears\nits contents in mind when considering the abstract arguments advanced\nthroughout this Essay. It is well to see what very great authorities\nhave thought concerning the true use of Metaphysics;--it is well also\nto see how they ought to be applied in questions of physical science,\nand for the purpose of grounding a science of Natural Theology.\n\n\nB.--ON THE PHRASE \"DESIGN IMPLIES A DESIGNER.\"\n\n\"It has been contended,\" says Professor Baden Powell, \"that in one\nsense it is mere tautology to say that Design implies a Designer.\"\n(Connexion of Natural and Divine Truth, p. 183.)\n\nAs a matter of fact there can be no doubt that verbal-sounding\nphrases, however useful in a system of Mnemonics, and much in favour\nas political war-cries, always tend to discredit the sober course of\na philosophic argument. But Paley, though writing popularly, did not\nintend a mere _ad captandum_ effect, as may be seen by a reference\nto his second chapter. He meant by Design and Contrivance to express\nin brief the conditions he had laid down as _characteristic_ of the\nintentional adaptation of means to definitely purposed ends,--with\nwhich conditions he appears to have been fully satisfied.\n\nIn his 23rd and 24th chapters, where some hasty writer might have said\n\"law implies a lawgiver,\" the Archdeacon prefers to state that \"a law\npre-supposes an agent,\" and proceeds to argue the statement on its\nmerits. \"Law,\" he says, \"is only the mode according to which an agent\nproceeds: it implies a power, for it is the order according to which\nthat power acts. Without this agent, without this power, which are both\ndistinct from itself, the 'law' does nothing; is nothing.\" (Chapter\n23.) He is well satisfied with this argument also, and repeats it\n(slightly varied in form) during the course of his next chapter.\n\nIn our comparison of Powell with Paley we were led to remark on the\ndiverse meanings of the word Design, and the facility with which some\nauthors have glided from one to another among its significations. If\nany thinker believes that the examples he adduces are _distinctly_\ninstances of Foresight, Intention, and Will, he has the Designer full\nin mind before he employs the term Design. But if his instances fall\nshort of thus much _implicit_ force, the argument founded on them is a\nworthless verbality.[68]\n\nThose who protest against the popular phrase, \"Design proves a\nDesigner,\" say it is a temptation to assume this point--(the one point\nat issue)--over which it skims with such secure ease. But to any person\nin earnest, few things are more irritating than a piece of cool,\nthorough-going assumption. It is like catching a cat and persistently\ncalling it a hare. Many visitors at certain Roman Hotels are aware\nthat when deprived of ears and tail _more Italico_ and well roasted,\nthe resemblance between these two animals may give rise to questions\nof disputed identity. Imagine, now, a party of cat-catchers, who not\nonly assume the Identity, but persevere in calling their mongrel curs\nharehounds, and themselves huntsmen. No truer claim in reality do\na multitude of Design-hunters possess to any higher title than the\n_leguleii_ of Natural Theology. And the blame of their discredit must\nin a great degree be laid upon their words. It is easy to say, \"A\nthrown-stone implies a thrower.\" But suppose the stone about which you\nand I are talking was thrown by the fiery force of a volcano? Must we\nhence infer the existence of a Cyclops or a Titan?\n\nThis mode of popular speech reached the climax of absurdity when it was\ngravely argued that \"Evolution implies an Evolver.\" So it might appear\nto the peculiar mind of the speaker; but how about the mind of him who\npromulgated the evolution-hypothesis? Stones (as we may observe) fly\nfrom more than one cause, and there is more than one account to be\ngiven of the theory of Evolution.\n\nEnough has been said to show that the phrase commented on in this\nnote, prejudices the argument it is intended to assist. It wears the\nappearance of embodying a foregone conclusion; and gives trouble to the\nhonest inquirer, who, in order to estimate reasonings at their true\nvalue, must translate them into accurate forms of speech.\n\nWe may aptly finish these remarks by a quotation from Whewell's\nAphorisms on the Language of Science. (Aphorism I., Philosophy of the\nInductive Sciences, II. 483.) \"Words borrowed from common language,\nand converted by scientific writers into technical terms, have some\nadvantages and some disadvantages. They possess this great convenience,\nthat they are understood after a very short explanation, and retained\nin the memory without effort. On the other hand they lead to some\ninconvenience; for since they have a meaning in common language, a\ncareless reader is prone to disregard the technical limitation of this\nmeaning, and to attempt to collect their import in scientific books, in\nthe same vague and conjectural manner in which he collects the purpose\nof words in common cases. Hence the language of science, when thus\nresembling common language, is liable to be employed with an absence of\nthat scientific precision which alone gives it value. Popular writers\nand talkers, when they speak of _force_, _momentum_, _action_, _and\nreaction_, and the like, often afford examples of the inaccuracy thus\narising from the scientific appropriation of common terms.\"\n\nA similar line of reflection led Coleridge to remark (Biog. Lit.,\nChap. x.) that \"the language of the market would be in the schools as\n_pedantic_, though it might not be reprobated by that name, as the\nlanguage of the schools in the market. The mere man of the world, who\ninsists that no other terms but such as occur in common conversation\nshould be employed in a scientific disquisition, and with no greater\nprecision, is as truly a _pedant_ as the man of letters, who, either\nover-rating the acquirements of his auditors, or misled by his own\nfamiliarity with technical or scholastic terms, converses at the\nwine-table with his mind fixed on his museum or laboratory.\" And such\npedantry is, we may add, not uncommonly just as perspicuous as the\ndefinition which, says old Glanvill, \"was lately given of a _Thought_\nin a _University Sermon_--viz. _A Repentine Prosiliency jumping into\nBeing_.\" (_Defence of the Vanity of Dogmatizing_, Actio Decima, p. 61,\ned. 1.)\n\n\nC.--HUME ON THE ANALOGIES OF ART AND NATURE.\n\n[_Referred to in footnote (e) in the preceding Chapter._]\n\nThe statement in the text is shaped as a not unfairly urged scientific\nobjection of the kind which might be raised by some actual craftsman\nor producer. An objection identical in essence is thrown by Hume into\na refined semi-metaphysical shape, and made to turn upon our general\nacquaintance with Human nature contrasted with our general ignorance of\nthe Divine. It runs as follows:--\n\n\"The infinite difference of the subjects, replied he,\" (Hume's dramatic\nEpicurus,) \"is a sufficient foundation for this difference in my\nconclusions. In works of _human_ art and contrivance, it is allowable\nto advance from the effect to the cause, and returning back from the\ncause, to form new inferences concerning the effect, and examine the\nalterations which it has probably undergone, or may still undergo. But\nwhat is the foundation of this method of reasoning? Plainly this; that\nman is a being, whom we know by experience, whose motives and designs\nwe are acquainted with, and whose projects and inclinations have a\ncertain connection and coherence, according to the laws which nature\nhas established for the government of such a creature. When, therefore,\nwe find that any work has proceeded from the skill and industry of man;\nas we are otherwise acquainted with the nature of the animal, we can\ndraw a hundred inferences concerning what may be expected from him; and\nthese inferences will all be founded in experience and observation.\nBut did we know man only from the single work or production which we\nexamine, it were impossible for us to argue in this manner; because our\nknowledge of all the qualities, which we ascribe to him, being in that\ncase derived from the production, it is impossible they could point to\nanything farther, or be the foundation of any new inference....\n\n\"The case is not the same with our reasonings from the works of nature.\nThe Deity is known to us only by his productions, and is a single\nbeing in the universe, not comprehended under any species or genus,\nfrom whose experienced attributes or qualities, we can, by analogy,\ninfer any attribute or quality in him.\" (Enquiry concerning Human\nUnderstanding. Section xi.)\n\nHume himself gives in his own character a reply partially veiled by the\nsame half-metaphysical style which characterises the objection:--\n\n\"There occurs to me (continued I), with regard to your main topic, a\ndifficulty which I shall just propose to you without insisting on it,\nlest it lead into reasonings of too nice and delicate a nature. In a\nword, I much doubt whether it be possible for a cause to be known only\nby its effect (as you have all along supposed), or to be of so singular\nand particular a nature, as to have no parallel and no similarity with\nany other cause or object that has ever fallen under our observation.\nIt is only when two _species_ of objects are found to be constantly\nconjoined, that we can infer the one from the other: and were an effect\npresented which was entirely singular, and could not be comprehended\nunder any known _species_, I do not see, that we could form any\nconjecture or inference at all concerning its cause. If experience\nand observation and analogy be, indeed, the only guides which we can\nreasonably follow in inferences of this nature; both the effect and\ncause must bear a similarity and resemblance to other effects and\ncauses which we know, and which we have found, in many instances, to be\nconjoined with each other. I leave it to your own reflection to pursue\nthe consequences of this principle.\" (Ibid.)\n\nThe consequences which ought in fairness to be deduced may be stated\nthus. The effect we contemplate, (_i.e._ Nature,) is _not_ singular\nbut can be compared with other effects--those of Art. The comparison\nis made in respect of certain specific attributes or properties upon\nwhich the Design analogy turns, so that we may reason upwards to\ncertain specific analogies of Causation. Art manifests the foreseeing\nattributes of the human artist, and from comparison of these we\ninfer in the Creator like attributes,--what Hume elsewhere calls the\n_natural_ attributes of the Deity. But this likeness is properly termed\n_analogical_, because of the vast difference in the magnitude of the\neffects _from_ which we thus reason, and of the causes _to_ which we\nreason. As our wisdom and power are proportionable to our earthly\nworks, so are the Divine wisdom and power proportionable to the whole\nmajestic Universe. There is, then, a comparison in _species_, but not\nin grandeur--the attributes are not _similar_, but _analogical_. As the\nHeavens are high above the Earth, so are His thoughts higher than our\nthoughts.\n\n\nD.--THE PANTHEISTIC CONSEQUENCES CHARGED UPON PHYSICAL SPECULATIONS.\n\nThe following is the passage from Professor Baden Powell referred to in\nnote (_h_) of the preceding chapter. Some short extracts were also made\nfrom it on a previous page.\n\n\"Nothing but the common confused and mistaken notions as to laws and\ncauses, could give any colour to the assertion that ... physical\nspeculations tend to substitute general physical laws in the place of\nthe Deity; and that scientific statements of the conclusions of Natural\nTheology are nothing but ill-disguised Pantheism.\n\n\"The utter futility of such inferences is at once seen, when the\nsmallest attention is given to the plain distinctions above laid down\nbetween 'moral' and 'physical' causation; and to the proper force of\nthe conclusions from natural science establishing the former by means\nof the latter.\n\n\"This distinction obviously points to the _very reverse_ of the\nassertion that physical action is identical with its moral cause; the\nessential difference and contrast between them is the very point which\nthe whole argument upholds and enforces.\n\n\"Of all forms of philosophical mysticism, the idea of Pantheism seems\nto me one of the most extravagant. Ever-present _mind_ is a direct\ninference from the universal order of nature, or rather only another\nmode of expressing it. But of the _mode_ of existence of that mind we\ncan infer nothing.\n\n\"To assert, then, that this universally manifested mind is\n_co-existent_, or even to be _identified_, with _matter_, is at best\na mere gratuitous hypothesis, and as such wholly unphilosophical in\nitself, and leading to many preposterous consequences. But if further\nsupposed to apply in any higher sense as to an object of worship,\ntrust, love, obedience, or the like (as is implied in the term\nPan_theism_), it appears to involve moral contradictions of the most\nstartling kind.\n\n\"There are, however, many who, though rejecting Pantheism as _untrue_,\ndo not conceive it _absurd_ or _contradictory_. Much, however, will,\nin all such cases, depend on the precise _sense_ in which it is\nmaintained. With some it seems to have been upheld on a fanciful\nanalogy with the conception of the human frame animated by an\nindwelling spirit; as if in a somewhat similar manner the supreme mind\nmight animate nature. Without disputing this in a certain sense, the\ncases surely cannot be considered at all parallel: we do not infer the\nexistence of the human mind, from the arrangement and adaptation of the\nbodily organs, nor is it the moral cause of their organisation.\n\n\"If Pantheism were asserted merely in the sense of a kind of vital or\nanimating principle pervading the material world, I would admit that\nsuch an idea involves _no absurdity_, or _contradiction_, but still I\nshould regard it as visionary and unphilosophical. I could but class\nit with the 'vital forces' which Kepler fancied necessary for keeping\nup the motions of the planets, with the 'plastic powers of nature,'\n'her abhorrence of a vacuum,' and the like chim\u00e6ras. But it is when men\nelevate such a supposed animating principle into a _Deity_, a being\nof supreme wisdom, power, beneficence, and goodness, yet residing in\nevery atom of matter, and _participating directly_ in every form and\ncase of material action, that the contradiction arises.\" _Spirit of the\nInductive Philosophy_, pp. 176-9.\n\n\nE.--THE EXTENT AND DIVISIONS OF THE SCIENCE OF NATURAL THEOLOGY.\n\nThe following passages from Professor Powell's Essay \"on the Spirit\nof the Inductive Philosophy\" will go far to justify the praise and\nblame bestowed upon his mode of procedure in the text of the foregoing\nchapter. But we would recommend his own pages to the student's\ndiscriminative perusal.\n\nIn extract No. 1, Baden Powell shows with equal truth and force that\nuniversal Law must be contemplated as a manifestation of one supreme\nIntelligence presiding over the whole Universe. A philosopher who looks\non Nature with this majestic breadth of view does not need for his own\ndeepest convictions to follow Design through a multitude of smaller\nevidences.\n\nIf extract No. 2 could be admitted as a _full_ account of the\nconditions and limitations of Natural Theology, our science would seem\nto result in an obscuration of the magnificently Supreme Power already\naccepted. So far as its _letter_ goes, the Creator of the Universe\nmight appear to be shut out from the world which He has made. We cannot\n(as has been said) consent to this narrow consideration of Natural\nTheology, nor yet of Powell's meaning.\n\nExtract No. 3 acknowledges what all physical investigators ought to\nacknowledge,--that although their sciences contribute very much towards\nsolving the problem of the Universe, and although their results readily\nharmonize with the solution maintained by the Theist--yet there rests\nover that vast problem a cloud which the physical sciences cannot\ncompletely dispel. This (as we shall see in Chapter V.) is indeed the\nconfession of the greatest minds at present engaged upon the philosophy\nof Natural Science.\n\n_Extract_ No. 1.--\"From the inductive philosophy we derive our belief\nin the harmony, order, and uniformity of natural causes, perpetually\nmaintained in a universally connected chain of dependence. And hence it\nis, that we arrive at those sublime ideas of a presiding Intelligence\nof which _law_ and _uniformity_, universal mechanism once for all\nadjusted, are the proper _external manifestations_.\n\n\"To the truly inductive philosopher, _fate_ and _chance_, _necessity_\nand _accident_, are words without meaning. To him, the world is made\nup of recondite combinations of physical laws, and the existence and\nmaintenance of those laws are the very indication of a Supreme Mind.\nBut chance is irreconcilable with laws, fate with mind, regulated and\nfixed order with blind destiny, fortuitous accident, or arbitrary\ninterruption.\n\n\"All rational natural theology advances by tracing the immediate\nmechanical steps and particular processes in detail, and the physical\ncauses in which the influences of the Great Moral Cause or Supreme Mind\nare manifested. The greater the number and extent of such secondary\nsteps and intermediate processes through which we can trace it, the\ngreater the complexity and wider the ramifications of the chain of\ncauses, the more powerful and convincing the instruction they convey as\nto the existence and operation of the Divine wisdom and power.\n\n\"Yet it is a common mode of illustration to speak of the _chain_ of\nsecondary causes reaching up to the First Cause. Or, again, fears are\nentertained of tracing secondary causes too far, so as to intrench on\nthe supremacy of the First Cause. But this is an erroneous analogy: the\nmaker or designer of a chain is no more at one end of it than at the\nother. The length of the chain in no way alters our conviction of its\nskilful structure, except to enhance it. If the number of links were\ntruly _infinite_, so much the more infinite the skill of its framer.\n\n\"Mr. F. Newman observes,[69] I think most truly, that the _common_\narguments from what are called 'secondary causes' to the 'First Cause'\nare unsatisfactory: and I would trace this to the confused sense in\nwhich those terms are commonly used, as already explained; and which, I\nthink, might be entirely removed by attention to the distinctions above\nlaid down. While, on the other hand, I fully acknowledge that those\narguments, when correctly understood, lead only to a _very limited_\nconclusion; and one which falls infinitely _short_ of those high moral\nand spiritual intuitions on which Mr. F. Newman grounds his religious\nsystem, yet in no way discredits or supersedes them.\" _Essay_, pp.\n151-4.\n\n_Extract_ No. 2.--\"In the present state of knowledge, law and order,\nphysical causation and uniformity of action, are the elevated\nmanifestations of Divinity, creation and providence. Interruptions of\nsuch order (if for a moment they could be admitted as such) could only\nproduce a sort of temporary concealment of such manifestations, and\ninvolve the beautiful light shed over the natural world in a passing\ncloud. We do not indeed _doubt_ that the sun exists behind the cloud,\nbut we certainly do not see it; still less can we call the obscuration\na special _proof_ of its presence. The main point in the system of\norder and law is its absolute _universality_. Exceptions, if real, must\n_pro tanto_ imply a deficiency in the chain of connexion, and might, to\na sceptical disposition, offer a ground of doubt.\n\n\"But so overwhelming is the mass and body of proof, that no philosophic\nmind would allow such exceptions for a moment to weigh against\nit; they would be as dust in the balance. A supreme moral cause\nmanifested through law, order, and physical causes, is the confession\nof science: conflicting operations, arbitrary interruptions, abrupt\ndiscontinuities, are the idols of ignorance, and, if they really\nprevailed, would so far be to the philosopher only the exponents of\nchaos and atheism; the obscuration (as far as they extend) of the\nsensible manifestation of the Supreme Intelligence.\" _Ibid._ 165, 6.\n\n_Extract_ No. 3.--\"The whole tenor of the preceding argument is\ndirected to show that the inference and assertion of a _Supreme Moral\nCause_, distinct from and above nature, results immediately from the\nrecognition of the eternal and universal maintenance of the order of\n_physical causes_, which are its essential _external manifestations_.\n\n\"Of the _mode of action or operation_ by which the Supreme Moral Cause\ninfluences the universal order of physical causes, _we confess our\nutter ignorance_. But the _evidence_ of such operation, where nature\nexists, can never be lost or interrupted. And in proportion as our\nmore extended researches exhibit these indications more fully and more\ngloriously displayed, we cannot but believe that our contemplations are\nmore nearly and truly approaching their SOURCE.\" _Ibid._ 179.\n\nThe reader will not grudge the time he may have bestowed upon this\nnote if it leads him to a distinct apprehension of the true breadth and\ncompass of our science.\n\n\"Natural Theology,\" says Kant, \"infers the attributes and the existence\nof an author of the world, from the constitution of, the order and\nunity observable in this world, in which two modes of Causality,\ntogether with their laws, must be accepted--that is to say, Nature\nand Freedom. Thus Natural Theology rises from this world to a\nsupreme Intelligence, whether as to the principle of all natural or\nof all moral order and perfection. In the former case it is termed\nPhysico-Theology, in the latter Ethical or Moral Theology.\" This last\nterm he explains by adding, \"Not theological ethics; for this latter\nscience contains ethical laws, which _presuppose_ the existence of a\nSupreme Governor of the world; while Moral Theology, on the contrary,\nis an evidence of the existence of a Supreme Being, an evidence founded\nupon ethical laws.\" _Kant's Kritik der reinen Vernunft Transscendental\nElementarlehre_, s. 7.\n\nIt was from the fulness and depth of a personal conviction on this\ntopic that the present writer ventured to assert in 1870 that \"The\nconditions under which Natural Theology becomes scientifically\npossible, are found when it supplements Natural Science by a science of\nRight and Wrong,\" and also that \"for the future Natural Theology ought\nto follow this path and no other--unless it wishes to commit suicide.\"\nThese assertions were made in a University Sermon[70] on the question,\n\"Under what Conditions is a Science of Natural Theology possible?\" and\nthey were censured as novel and unprecedented by critics who ought to\nhave known better.\n\n\nF.--ON TELEOLOGY.\n\nOne consequence of the principle on which this Essay has been framed\nis an endeavour to place before the reader's eye different modes of\nreasoning in the language of their several authors. The method of\nlooking at any subject-matter in a diversity of lights naturally leads\nto copiousness of quotation. There can, it is evident, be no varieties\nof thought so undeniably distinct as those which are the actual\nproducts of diverse minds.\n\nThe maxim which has governed the following selection is what Bacon\nwould call a marshalling Idea. They posit one central thought and throw\nlight upon it from a circle of separate reflectors.\n\nLet it be observed that such a collection of opinions implies no\nappeal to authority in the narrow sense of the word. There is indeed a\nmanifest distinction between authority and authorities--and our present\nappeal is to the latter. No man's _ipse dixit_ can dogmatically settle\nquestions which belong to an inquirer's responsible self; but it is\nsurely the wisdom of every one who acknowledges the awful sense of\naccountability attendant on the determination of questions affecting\nhis central beliefs, to weigh the reasonings of others who have felt\nthe same deep impression of their paramount importance. If any one\nis reluctant so to do from an idea that by doing thus much he pays a\nwrongful deference to prejudices, he has in truth assumed the whole\nissue which he is bound to examine. How otherwise can he certainly\nallege that the prejudice is not inherent within himself?\n\nReluctance of this kind would on the present occasion be thoroughly\nmisplaced. Authorities as here quoted are neither more nor less than\nthe opinions of experts who have a title to be heard each in his own\nproper department. Throughout the practical conduct of life we all\nexperience the benefit of laying aside our private spectacles from\ntime to time and of looking through the glasses of other men. And in\nquestions such as the one now before us, is it possible to do better\nthan try whether we can see for ourselves what has been pronounced\ndiscernible by men who contemplated this world of ours with more than\nordinary powers of vision?\n\nThe present writer has a personal interest in bringing together the\nreflections of many who have reached the same resting-place along\nvarious lines of approach, and who have expressed their conclusions\nwith some diversity of language. He has ventured himself on viewing the\nevidences of Natural Theology from a position by no means identical\nwith that most commonly occupied by Natural Theologians. The student,\ntherefore, who takes a wide survey of the field will be the critic best\nprepared to examine the latter part of this Essay.\n\nThe first authority quoted among our ample citations is Hume, whose\nappearance as a witness for Natural Theology may surprise some readers.\nAs, however, is remarked by an eminent writer in the _Quarterly_,\nHume's hard common sense \"enabled him when he liked, to control the\nexcesses of a speculative imagination and subject it to practical\nreason, as he understood reason's verdict.\" He even went so far as to\nsay that \"The whole frame of Nature bespeaks an Intelligent Author;\nand no rational inquirer can, after serious reflection, suspend his\nbelief a moment with regard to the primary principles of genuine Theism\nand Religion.\" (_Natural History of Religion_, Introduction.) Indeed,\naccording to Cucheval Clarigny,[71] Hume was an \"almost Christian\" at\ncertain periods of his life. The repellant forces that kept him back,\nare \"not far to seek.\"\n\nThe following passages refer to the illative analogy which forms the\nproper shape of the argument from Design.\n\n\"That the works of Nature bear a great analogy to the productions of\nart, is evident; and according to all the rules of good reasoning,\nwe ought to infer, if we argue at all concerning them, that their\ncauses have a proportional analogy. But as there are also considerable\ndifferences, we have reason to suppose a proportional difference\nin the causes; and in particular ought to attribute a much higher\ndegree of power and energy to the supreme cause than any we have\never observed in mankind. Here then the existence of a DEITY is\nplainly ascertained by reason: and if we make it a question whether,\non account of these analogies, we can properly call him a _mind_\nor _intelligence_, notwithstanding the vast difference which may\nreasonably be supposed between him and human minds; what is this but\na mere verbal controversy? No man can deny the analogies between the\neffects: To restrain ourselves from inquiring concerning the causes,\nis scarcely possible: From this inquiry, the legitimate conclusion is,\nthat the causes have also an analogy: And if we are not contented with\ncalling the first and supreme cause a GOD or DEITY, but desire to vary\nthe expression; what can we call him but MIND or THOUGHT, to which he\nis justly supposed to bear a considerable resemblance?\" _Dialogues\nconcerning Natural Religion_, Part xii. in Essays, Vol. II. p. 526.[72]\n\n\n\"If the whole of Natural Theology, as some people seem to maintain,\nresolves itself into one simple, though somewhat ambiguous, at least\nundefined proposition, _That the cause or causes of order in the\nuniverse probably bear some remote analogy to human intelligence_.\nIf this proposition be not capable of extension, variation, or more\nparticular explication; if it affords no inference that affects human\nlife, or can be the source of any action or forbearance; and if the\nanalogy, imperfect as it is, can be carried no farther than to the\nhuman intelligence, and cannot be transferred, with any appearance of\nprobability, to the other qualities of the mind: If this really be the\ncase, what can the most inquisitive, contemplative, and religious man\ndo more than give a plain, philosophical assent to the proposition,\nas often as it occurs; and believe that the arguments on which it is\nestablished, exceed the objections which lie against it?\" _Ibid._ p.\n538.\n\nThe following is the opinion of Cleanthes, upon whom Hume confers the\npalm in the dialogue;--\"Take care, Philo, replied Cleanthes; take care;\npush not matters too far: allow not your zeal against false religion to\nundermine your veneration for the true. Forfeit not this principle, the\nchief, the only great comfort in life; and our principal support amidst\nall the attacks of adverse fortune. The most agreeable reflection,\nwhich it is possible for human imagination to suggest, is that of\ngenuine Theism, which represents us as the workmanship of a Being\nperfectly good, wise, and powerful; who created us for happiness; and\nwho, having implanted in us immeasurable desires of good, will prolong\nour existence to all eternity, and will transfer us into an infinite\nvariety of scenes, in order to satisfy those desires, and render our\nfelicity complete and durable. Next to such a Being himself (if the\ncomparison be allowed), the happiest lot which we can imagine, is that\nof being under his guardianship and protection.\" _Ibid._ p.535.[73]\n\nThe next three extracts give Hume's opinion on the prevailing principle\ndisclosed by the analogy--design, purpose, and the recognition of final\ncauses:--\n\n\"Though the stupidity of men, barbarous and uninstructed, be so great,\nthat they may not see a sovereign author in the more obvious works of\nnature, to which they are so much familiarized; yet it scarce seems\npossible, that any one of good understanding should reject that idea,\nwhen once it is suggested to him. A purpose, an intention, a design is\nevident in everything; and when our comprehension is so far enlarged\nas to contemplate the first rise of this visible system, we must\nadopt, with the strongest conviction, the idea of some intelligent\ncause or author. The uniform maxims, too, which prevail throughout\nthe whole frame of the universe, naturally, if not necessarily, lead\nus to conceive this intelligence as single and undivided, where the\nprejudices of education oppose not so reasonable a theory. Even the\ncontrarieties of nature, by discovering themselves everywhere, become\nproofs of some consistent plan, and establish one single purpose or\nintention, however inexplicable and incomprehensible.\" _Natural History\nof Religion_ XV.--General Corollary, in _Essays_ II. pp. 422, 3.\n\n\"In many views of the universe, and of its parts, particularly the\nlatter, the beauty and fitness of final causes strike us with such\nirresistible force that all objections appear (what I believe they\nreally are) mere cavils and sophisms; nor can we then imagine how it\nwas ever possible for us to repose any weight on them.\" _Dialogues\nconcerning Natural Religion_, Part X. in _Essays_, II. 509.\n\n\"The order and arrangement of nature, the curious adjustment of final\ncauses, the plain use and intention of every part and organ; all these\nbespeak in the clearest language an intelligent cause or author. The\nheavens and the earth join in the same testimony. The whole chorus of\nnature raises one hymn to the praises of its Creator.... I have found a\nDeity; and here I stop my enquiry. Let those go farther who are wiser\nor more enterprising.\" _Ibid._ Part IV. p. 467.\n\nHume is conspicuous amongst reasoners on Natural Theology for having\ndistinctly comprehended Human Nature along with Nature in the cycle\nof its evidences. \"This sentence at least,\" he writes, \"Reason will\nventure to pronounce, That a mental world, or universe of ideas,\nrequires a cause as much as does a material world, or universe of\nobjects; and, if similar in its arrangement, must require a similar\ncause. For what is there in this subject which should occasion a\ndifferent conclusion or inference? In an abstract view, they are\nentirely alike; and no difficulty attends the one supposition which is\nnot common to both of them.\" _Ibid._ Part IV. p. 464.\n\nThis statement brings us to the impediments which withheld Hume from\nforming a sublime idea of the Divine Being, such an idea as kindles the\nenthusiasm of devout men, and inspires even timidly sensitive souls\nwith deathless confidence in the final triumph of a self-sacrificing\nvirtue destined to survive the grave. These causes were the opinions he\nmaintained respecting human nature. We may lay it down as a universal\nrule that every one who sees the animal, but not the heaven-aspiring\nmoral element in his own nature, and in our common nature, will fail\nto represent to himself the lineaments or reflection of the Divine\nattributes. An acknowledged kinship with brutal passions, the lowering\nof society and wedlock to animal gregariousness, of moral principle\nand the rule of Right and Wrong to a perception of Utility, are fatal\nhindrances in the search after God;--a search arduous to the best\nof us, since deep as the far translucent heavens, are the majestic\nthoughts of Him after Whom we strive to feel. Now Hume failed to\ndiscern the Godlike in Man. \"Human life,\" he remarks in his _Sceptic_,\n\"is more governed by fortune than by reason; is to be regarded more as\na dull pastime than as a serious occupation; and is more influenced by\nparticular humour than by general principles.\" Morality is no fixed\nstar in Hume's firmament. To omit the laxity of many moral maxims he\nlays down, the very nature and foundations of morality were imperilled\nby his analytics.[74]\n\n\"He has,\" writes Mackintosh, \"altogether omitted the circumstance on\nwhich depends the difference of our sentiments regarding moral and\nintellectual qualities. We _admire_ intellectual excellence, but we\nbestow no moral _approbation_ on it.\" And again--\"He entirely overlooks\nthat consciousness of the _rightful supremacy of the moral faculty_\nover every other principle of human action, without an explanation\nof which, ethical theory is wanting in one of its vital organs.\"\n_Ethical Philosophy_, pp. 182, 4. \"If,\" says Hume in the _Sceptic_,\n\"we can depend upon any principle which we learn from philosophy,\nthis, I think, may be considered as certain and undoubted, that there\nis nothing in itself valuable or despicable, desirable or hateful,\nbeautiful or deformed; but that these attributes arise from the\nparticular constitution and fabric of human sentiment and affection.\"\nAnd half a dozen pages afterwards--\"Good and ill, both natural and\nmoral, are entirely relative to human sentiment and affection.\" So\ntoo, \"The necessity of justice to the support of society is,\" he tells\nus, \"the SOLE foundation of that virtue;\" usefulness, he\nexplains, \"is the SOLE source of the moral approbation paid\nto fidelity, justice, veracity, integrity, and those other estimable\nand useful qualities and principles.\" It is also \"the source of a\nconsiderable part of the merit ascribed to humanity, benevolence,\nfriendship, public spirit, and other social virtues of that stamp.\"\n_Principles of Morals_, Sect. III. _sub fin._ With these sentiments it\nis not surprising that while he insists on the analogy between human\nworkmanship and the natural universe he cannot argue analogically\nfrom moral Truth to the Divine attributes--and even goes so far as to\ndecide that the first causes of the Universe \"have neither goodness nor\nmalice.\"\n\nThe student of Natural Theology cannot direct his attention too soon\nor too steadily to the vast share possessed by our moral sentiments\nin our apprehension of the Divine nature. It is from our sense of\nResponsibility attached to each act of Will and Choice that we deduce\nthe idea of causation. It is from our intuitions of immutable moral\ntruth and the irreconcilable antithesis between Right and Wrong that\nwe behold the Martyr as one who has not lived in vain, but lives truly\nand for ever; and are sure that there exists a God who has regard to\nthe righteous, the oppressed, the fatherless, and the widow. Clear\nmoral insight appears in Socrates, who chose to die rather than offend\nagainst the eternal laws. But ought the man to be styled moral or\nimmoral who should balance together two comparative utilities,--that\nof preserving his father's life and that of acquiring by a judicious\nneglect, without risk to himself, a property which he resolved to\nexpend usefully? Of one thing we may be sure, God could not be in all\nhis thoughts whilst making such a calculation.\n\nIt is thus that a pure Morality and an elevated conception of the\nDivine Being act and react upon each other. And in this way our\nspeculative and practical Reason become interlaced--the former giving\nto the logical understanding an account of those ideas which form the\nessential sublimity and moving influence of our practical beliefs--the\nsprings of our daily and hourly behaviour. There is no more certain\ncharacteristic of a mind so ordered than its ability to deal with a\nmoral doubt which casuists might long debate, to solve the enigma\nwithin the compass of a moment's thought, and to defend the solution by\nfair and honest argument. As regards our present question it makes no\ndifference by what means such a condition of mind may have been brought\nabout, but it is plain that a sense of accountability has much to do\nwith this condition. And the connexion between Responsibility and our\nbelief in a life immortal, and in a just and veracious God, will form a\nsubject for future consideration.\n\nMeantime, the reader must take Hume's acceptance of the doctrine of\nfinal causes and the Design-analogy, for what it is worth. No candid\nperson ought to condemn Hume as he has often been condemned without\nremembering the allowance to be made for his excessive vanity,[75]\nhis extreme love of paradoxical speculation, and the dramatic irony\nwhich runs throughout his writings. These are in fact some of the\nqualities which make him an unfit schoolmaster for the young, and a\nshrewd exercise for elder men. One useful lesson we gather just now is\nlearned from the fact that he places a wide gulf between the natural\nand moral attributes of the Deity, and draws a veil over the latter,\nbecause the alleged poverty of our moral ideas precludes any analogy to\nreason upon, however remote that analogy may appear. Hence Hume's God\nof Nature becomes a shadow like Wordsworth's Laodamia, scarce fit for\nthe Elysian bowers; He is no longer felt by us to be the God of Human\nNature.\n\nWe cannot here omit to observe that Hume had no thought of worshipping\nthe Order of the World, or of erecting a temple to immutable Laws,\nblind Force, or any other blank impersonal Necessity. The limit of his\ninquiry was what to human reason might appear the easiest and most\nprobable interpretation of nature.[76] This question he asked and\nanswered. Whether modern science has added important data on which\nto found a more conclusive reply is a further inquiry which we shall\nhave to consider, but meantime it appears certain that _if_ the most\nsceptical theory of the most sceptical scientist were held true, there\nwould still remain the same necessity for asking Hume's question. For\nneither our life, nor the world we live in, nor the wide universe,\nhave any real cause or aim scientifically assigned them. We should\nstill have to inquire by what agency and to what purpose we and the All\nexist? That we really _are_ is a fact for you, O reader, and for me;\nand we cannot but want to discover _whether_ we shall yet _be_, when\nthis brief yet tedious life is done; and if so, whether our present\nacts and choosings must influence our Hereafter? Science has said\nnothing to annihilate our interest concerning these topics, nor yet to\nfinally decide them.\n\nFor the truth of what is contained in this last paragraph, we may\ncite as witness amongst scientific men, the distinguished President\nof the British Association for 1872. Dr. Carpenter spoke at Brighton\nin these words:--\"There is a great deal of what I cannot but regard\nas fallacious and misleading Philosophy--'oppositions of Science\nfalsely so called'--abroad in the world at the present time. And I\nhope to satisfy you, that those who set up _their own conceptions_ of\nthe Orderly Sequence which they discern in the Phenomena of Nature,\nas fixed and determinate _Laws_, by which those phenomena not only\n_are_ within all Human experience, but always _have been_, and always\n_must be_, invariably governed, are really guilty of the Intellectual\narrogance they condemn in the Systems of the Ancients, and place\nthemselves in diametrical antagonism to those real Philosophers, by\nwhose comprehensive grasp and penetrating insight that Order has been\nso far disclosed.\" And again towards the close of his Address:--\"With\nthe growth of the Scientific Study of Nature, the conception of its\nHarmony and Unity gained ever-increasing strength. And so among the\nmost enlightened of the Greek and Roman Philosophers, we find a\ndistinct recognition of the idea of the Unity of the Directing Mind\nfrom which the Order of Nature proceeds; for they obviously believed\nthat, as our modern Poet has expressed it--\n\n    \"All are but parts of one stupendous whole,\n    Whose body Nature is, and God the Soul.\"\n\nThe Science of Modern times, however, has taken a more special\ndirection. Fixing its attention exclusively on the _Order_ of Nature,\nit has separated itself wholly from Theology, whose function it is to\nseek after its _Cause_. In this, Science is fully justified, alike by\nthe entire independence of its objects, and by the historical fact\nthat it has been continually hampered and impeded in its search for\nthe Truth as it is in Nature, by the restraints which Theologians have\nattempted to impose upon its inquiries. But when Science, passing\nbeyond its own limits, assumes to take the place of Theology, and sets\nup its own conception of the _Order_ of Nature as a sufficient account\nof its _Cause_, it is invading a province of Thought to which it has no\nclaim, and not unreasonably provokes the hostility of those who ought\nto be its best friends.\"\n\nOur next extract is from Sir Benjamin Brodie, and it, too, considers\nthe absolute permanence of the laws of Nature in relation to Design:--\n\nCrites. \"There have been sceptics who have believed that the laws of\nnature were, if I may use the expression, self-existent; and that what\nwe now see around us is but a continuation of a system that has been\ngoing on from all eternity--thus dispensing with the notion of a great\ncreative Intelligence altogether.\"\n\nEubulus. \"Under any view of the subject, it seems to me that it would\nbe very difficult, if not impossible, for any of us practically to\nseparate the marks of design, and of the adaptation of means to ends,\nwhich the universe affords, but which are more especially conspicuous\nin the animal and vegetable kingdoms, from the notion of an intelligent\nCause. There is not one of the sceptics to whom you have alluded, who\nwould not, if he were asked the question, \"What is the use of the eye?\"\nanswer, \"that it is intended to be the organ of vision, as the ear is\nintended to be that of hearing, and as the nostrils are constructed\nfor the purpose of smell.\" But what I said just now requires some\nfurther explanation. When I stated that at the present time there is no\nevidence of any deviation from certain established laws of nature--that\nif we could thoroughly know and thoroughly appreciate what those laws\nreally are, we should be able to account for all the phenomena around\nus--I was far from intending to say that there has never been a period\nwhen other laws than those which are now in force were in operation,\nor that the time may not arrive when the present order of things will\nbe in a similar manner superseded. Looking at the structure of the\nglobe, and the changes in its surface which have been disclosed to the\nobservation of geologists, we recognize the probability that there was\na time when this planet of ours was no better than a huge a\u00ebrolite,\nand in a state quite incompatible with animal or even vegetable life.\nThe existence of living beings, then, must have had a beginning; yet\nwe have no evidence of any law now in force which will account for\nthis marvellous creation.\"[77] Psychological Inquiries, Part II., pp.\n193-4-5.\n\nThe great surgeon next discusses the question of \"Equivocal Generation\"\nnow known by the terms Archebiosis and Abiogenesis. His opinion,\ntogether with some later information on the topic, will be found in our\nadditional notes to Chapter III.\n\nWhen writing his first series of \"Inquiries\" Sir Benjamin recorded his\njudgment regarding our knowledge and conception of the Divine Existence\nand in terms which show how closely he connected the general subject of\nMind and its Essence with his idea of the Creator.\n\nEubulus. \"When I contemplate the evidence of intention and design which\npresent themselves everywhere around us, but which, to our limited\ncomprehensions, is more especially manifested in the vegetable and\nanimal creations, I cannot avoid attributing the construction and order\nof the universe to an intelligent being, whose power and knowledge are\nsuch that it is impossible for me to form any adequate conception of\nthem, any more than I can avoid referring the motions of the planets\nand stars to the same law of gravitation as that which directs the\nmotions of our own globe. But no one, I apprehend, will maintain that\nthe mind of the Deity depends on a certain construction of brain and\nnerves; and Dr. Priestley, the most philosophical of the advocates of\nthe system of materialism, ventures no further than to say that we\nhave no knowledge on the subject. But, to use the words of Sir Isaac\nNewton, 'This powerful ever-living agent being in all places, is more\nable to move the bodies within his boundless uniform sensorium, and\nthereby to form and reform the parts of the universe, than we are,\nby our will, to move the parts of our own bodies.' The remainder of\nthe passage from which I have made this quotation, is not without\ninterest, as indicating the view which Newton took of the matter in\nquestion:--'And yet we are not to consider the world as the body of\nGod, or the several parts thereof as the parts of God. He is an uniform\nbeing, void of organs, members, or parts, and they are his creatures,\nsubordinate to him, and subservient to him, and he is no more the soul\nof them than the soul of man is the soul of the species carried through\nthe organs of sense into the place of its sensation, where it perceives\nthem by its immediate presence, without the intervention of any third\nthing. The organs of sense are not for enabling the soul to perceive\nthe species of things in its sensorium, but only for conveying them\nthither; and God has no need of any such organs, he being everywhere\npresent to the things themselves.'\"\n\nErgates. \"I entirely agree with you in the opinion that we must admit\nthe existence of the Deity as a fact as well established as that of the\nlaw of gravitation, and that in doing so we must further admit that\nmind may and does exist, independently of bodily organization. Be it\nalso remembered that _mind_, in its humblest form, is still _mind_,\nand that, immeasurable as the distance between them may be, it must\nnevertheless be regarded as being of the same essence with that of the\nDeity himself. For my own part I find no difficulty in conceiving the\nexistence of mind independently of corporeal organs.\" (p. 39, seq.)\n\nThose who have read Professor Huxley's article on the Metaphysics of\nSensation,[78] will feel much interested in the passages selected from\nNewton by Sir Benjamin. It seems almost a pity that the accomplished\nProfessor did not cite any of Dr. Clarke's explanatory remarks\naddressed to Leibniz respecting Sir Isaac Newton's expressions. The\nsimilitude above quoted, Clarke explains thus:--\"Mr. Newton consid\u00e8re\nle cerveau et les organes des sens, comme le moyen par lequel ces\nimages sont Form\u00e9es et non comme le moyen par lequel l'\u00e2me voit\nou aper\u00e7oit ces images, lorsqu'elles sont ainsi form\u00e9es. Et dans\nl'Univers, il ne consid\u00e8re pas les choses, comme si elles \u00e9taient des\nimages form\u00e9es par un certain moyen ou par des organes; mais comme\ndes choses r\u00e9elles, que Dieu lui-m\u00eame a form\u00e9es, et qu'il voit dans\ntous les lieux o\u00f9 elles sont, sans l'intervention d'aucun moyen. C'est\ntout ce que Mr. Newton a voulu dire par la comparaison, dont il s'est\nservi, lorsqu'il suppose que l'Espace infini est, pour ainsi dire, le\nSensorium de l'Etre qui est pr\u00e9sent partout.\"\n\nA simpler way of putting the case may be to point out that the\ncomparison of a Sensorium is intended, like other similitudes we have\nreviewed, to hold in only one point. Newton uses it apparently to\nlocalize the idea of _immediate intuition_. In this way all Space, the\nwhole Universe, with its moving contents, which transcend the farthest\nflight of human imagination are,--not distantly,--but immediately\npresent to the mind of God.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nPassing from these thoughts which may illustrate, but cannot explain,\na subject dark with excess of splendour, we now enter on a series of\nextracts so chosen as to furnish an ample examination of the several\n_ideas_ involved in the philosophy of Design, and an estimate of their\nseveral values. It is evidently important that the reader should\npossess some means of forming clear conceptions respecting the nature\nof these ideas, and the collection now appended, aims at saving him\nthe trouble of a tedious search. Any points which may have appeared\nperplexing or obscure in the preceding Chapter will, it is hoped, be\nmade sufficiently plain by a perusal of the following pages.\n\nThe first in this class of passages is taken from Whewell's Philosophy\nof the Inductive Sciences. No one probably was ever much better\nfitted by training and attainment than that eminent writer for the\ninvestigation he here undertakes. We must, however, caution the reader\nagainst supposing that Dr. Whewell means to introduce him into a\nworld of Platonism. The ideas he speaks of may be illustrated in this\nway. Suppose a person constructs a right line according to Euclid's\ndefinition and draws it evenly between its extreme points, his mind\nhas immediately an impression of rightness or straightness, which\nhe attaches to all lines actually so constructed or conceived of as\ntheoretically possible. This idea of straightness is absolute and\nuniversal. So, again, looking at two such lines, he knows that they,\ncannot, in the nature of things inclose a space, and this idea likewise\nis universal and absolutely true.\n\nWith the nature of these ideas as a psychological question, the reader\nneed not concern himself for our present purpose. It is sufficient to\nobserve they are brought into activity by a practical occasion. Whether\nthey were wholly or partially pre-existent--or whether they represent\na state of our Reason evoked by the occasion--are points which make no\ndifference to their exact strength of validity. We find as a matter\nof fact in going through life that this particular class of ideas is\nso very true that it enables us to gauge the material universe. Yet\nnotably enough, Hume in his Treatise (I. 247, seq.) reduces applied\nmathematics to a species of probability.\n\nOther ideas having various degrees of validity and practical necessity\nare involved in the diverse processes which pertain to the inductive\nsciences. Dr. Whewell's work was written for the purpose of\nelucidating them, which he does at great length. To some such ideas,\nprinciples, and beliefs we shall advert by and bye.\n\nAll that seems now necessary is to remark that the distinguished\nauthor's general division (Book IX.) where our extract will be found,\nis concerned with the Philosophy of Biology, and that the paragraphs\nquoted are sections of its chapter VI., \"On the Idea of Final Causes.\"\n\n\"1. By an examination of those notions which enter into all our\nreasonings and judgments on living things, it appears that we conceive\nanimal life as a vortex or cycle of moving matter in which the form\nof the vortex determines the motions, and these motions again support\nthe form of the vortex: the stationary parts circulate the fluids,\nand the fluids nourish the permanent parts. Each portion ministers to\nthe others, each depends upon the other. The parts make up the whole,\nbut the existence of the whole is essential to the preservation of\nthe parts. But parts existing under such conditions are _organs_,\nand the whole is _organized_. This is the fundamental conception of\norganization. 'Organized beings,' says the physiologist,[79] 'are\ncomposed of a number of essential and mutually dependent parts.'--'An\norganized product of nature,' says the great metaphysician,[80] 'is\nthat in which all the parts are mutually ends and means.'\n\n\"2. It will be observed that we do not content ourselves with saying\nthat in such a whole, all the parts are _mutually dependent_. This\nmight be true even of a mechanical structure; it would be easy to\nimagine a framework in which each part should be necessary to the\nsupport of each of the others; for example, an arch of several stones.\nBut in such a structure the parts have no properties which they derive\nfrom the whole. They are beams or stones when separate; they are no\nmore when joined. But the same is not the case in an organized whole.\nThe limb of an animal separated from the body, loses the properties of\na limb and soon ceases to retain even its form.\n\n\"3. Nor do we content ourselves with saying that the parts are\n_mutually causes and effects_. This is the case in machinery. In a\nclock, the pendulum by means of the escapement causes the descent of\nthe weight, the weight by the same escapement keeps up the motion of\nthe pendulum. But things of this kind may happen by accident. Stones\nslide from a rock down the side of a hill and cause it to be smooth;\nthe smoothness of the slope causes stones still to slide. Yet no one\nwould call such a slide an organized system. The system is organized,\nwhen the effects which take place among the parts are _essential to our\nconception of the whole_; when the whole would not _be_ a whole, nor\nthe parts, parts, except these effects were produced; when the effects\nnot only happen in fact, but are included in the idea of the object;\nwhen they are not only seen, but foreseen; not only expected, but\nintended: in short when, instead of being causes and effects, they are\n_ends_ and _means_, as they are termed in the above definition.\n\n\"Thus we necessarily include, in our idea of Organization, the notion\nof an End, a Purpose, a Design; or, to use another phrase which has\nbeen peculiarly appropriated in this case, a _Final Cause_. This idea\nof a Final Cause is an essential condition in order to the pursuing our\nresearches respecting organized bodies....\n\n\"5. This has already been confirmed by reference to fact; in the\nHistory of Physiology, I have shown that those who studied the\nstructure of animals were irresistibly led to the conviction that the\nparts of this structure have each its end or purpose;--that each member\nand organ not merely produces a certain effect or answers a certain\nuse, but is so framed as to impress us with the persuasion that it was\nconstructed _for_ that use;--that it was _intended_ to produce the\neffect. It was there seen that this persuasion was repeatedly expressed\nin the most emphatic manner by Galen;--that it directed the researches\nand led to the discoveries of Harvey;--that it has always been dwelt\nupon as a favourite contemplation, and followed as a certain guide, by\nthe best anatomists;--and that it is inculcated by the physiologists of\nthe profoundest views and most extensive knowledge of our own time. All\nthese persons have deemed it a most certain and important principle of\nphysiology, that in every organized structure, plant or animal, each\nintelligible part has its allotted office:--each organ is designed\nfor its appropriate function:--that nature, in these cases, produces\nnothing in vain: that, in short, each portion of the whole arrangement\nhas its _final cause_; an end to which it is adapted, and in this end,\nthe reason that it is where and what it is.\n\n\"6. This Notion of Design in organized bodies must, I say, be supplied\nby the student of organization out of his own mind: a truth which will\nbecome clearer if we attend to the most conspicuous and acknowledged\ninstances of _design_. The structure of the eye, in which the parts are\ncuriously adjusted so as to produce a distinct image on the retina, as\nin an optical instrument;--the trochlear muscle of the eye, in which\nthe tendon passes round a support and turns back, like a rope round a\npulley;--the prospective contrivances for the preservation of animals,\nprovided long before they are wanted, as the milk of the mother, the\nteeth of the child, the eyes and the lungs of the foetus:--these\narrangements, and innumerable others, call up in us a persuasion that\nDesign has entered into the plan of animal form and progress. And if we\nbring in our minds this conception of Design, nothing can more fully\nsquare with and fit it, than such instances as these. But if we did not\nalready possess the Idea of Design;--if we had not had our notion of\nmechanical contrivance awakened by inspection of optical instruments,\nor pulleys, or in some other way;--if we had never been conscious\nourselves of providing for the future;--if this were the case, we could\nnot recognize contrivance and prospectiveness in such instances as we\nhave referred to. The facts are, indeed, admirably in accordance with\nthese conceptions, when the two are brought together: but the facts and\nthe conceptions come together from different quarters--from without and\nfrom within.\n\n\"7. We may further illustrate this point by referring to the relations\nof travellers who tell us that when consummate examples of human\nmechanical contrivance have been set before savages, they have appeared\nincapable of apprehending them as proofs of design. This shows that\nin such cases the Idea of Design had not been developed in the minds\nof the people who were thus unintelligent: but it no more proves\nthat such an idea does not naturally and necessarily arise, in the\nprogress of men's minds, than the confused manner in which the same\nsavages apprehend the relations of space, or number, or cause, proves\nthat these ideas do not naturally belong to their intellects. All men\nhave these ideas; and it is because they cannot help referring their\nsensations to such ideas, that they apprehend the world as existing in\ntime and space, and as a series of causes and effects. It would be very\nerroneous to say that the belief of such truths is obtained by logical\nreasoning from facts. And in like manner we cannot logically deduce\ndesign from the contemplation of organic structures; although it is\nimpossible for us, when the facts are clearly before us, not to find a\nreference to design operating in our minds.\"\n\nIt seems well to add here the practical comments made by M\u00fcller and\nKant on the passages quoted from them by Dr. Whewell in his first\nParagraph. Professor M\u00fcller writes thus (Baly's translation, Vol. I.,\np. 19):--\"The manner in which their elements are combined, is not the\nonly difference between organic and inorganic bodies; there is in\nliving organic matter a principle constantly in action, the operations\nof which are in accordance with a rational plan, so that the individual\nparts which it creates in the body, are adapted to the design of the\nwhole; and this it is which distinguishes organism. Kant says, 'The\ncause of the particular mode of existence of each part of a living body\nresides in the whole, while in dead masses each part contains this\ncause within itself.' This explains why a mere part separated from an\norganized whole generally does not continue to live; why, in fact, an\norganized body appears to be one and indivisible.\"\n\nBefore proceeding to the great Metaphysician, it may be interesting to\nplace in connection with this extract from M\u00fcller, certain views of\nother distinguished physiologists. Sir C. Bell states his own opinions\non the connection of Life and Organization in this manner (_Appendix\nto Paley's Natural Theology_ by Sir Charles Bell, commencing with pp.\n211-13):--\"Archdeacon Paley has, in these two introductory chapters,\ngiven us the advantage of simple, but forcible language, with extreme\ningenuity, in illustration. But for his example, we should have felt\nsome hesitation in making so close a comparison between design,\nas exhibited by the Creator in the animal structure, and the mere\nmechanism, the operose and imperfect contrivances of human art.\n\n\"Certainly, there may be a comparison; for a superficial and rapid\nsurvey of the animal body may convey the notion of an apparatus of\nlevers, pulleys, and ropes--which maybe compared with the spring,\nbarrel, and fusee, the wheels and pinions, of a watch. But if we study\nthe texture of animal bodies more curiously, and especially if we\ncompare animals with each other--for example, the simple structure of\nthe lower creatures with the complicated structure of those higher\nin the scale of existence--we shall see, that in the lowest links\nof the chain animals are so simple, that we should almost call them\nhomogeneous; and yet in these we find life, sensibility, and motion.\nIt is in the animals higher in the scale that we discover parts having\ndistinct endowments, and exhibiting complex mechanical relations. The\nmechanical contrivances which are so obvious in man, for instance, are\nthe provisions for the agency and dominion of an intellectual power\nover the materials around him.\n\n\"We mark this early, because there are authors who, looking upon this\ncomplexity of mechanism, confound it with the presence of life itself,\nand think it a necessary adjunct--nay, even that life proceeds from\nit: whereas the mechanism which we have to examine in the animal body\nis formed with reference to the necessity of acting upon or receiving\nimpressions from, things external to the body--a necessary condition of\nour state of existence in a material world.\n\n\"Many have expressed their opinion very boldly on the necessary\nrelation between organization and life, who have never extended their\nviews to the system of nature. To place man, an intelligent and active\nbeing, in this world of matter, he must have properties bearing\nrelation to that matter. The existence of matter implies an agency of\ncertain forces;--the particles of bodies must suffer attraction and\nrepulsion; and the bodies formed by the balance of these influences\nupon their atoms or particles must have weight or gravity, and possess\nmechanical properties. So must the living body, independently of its\npeculiar endowments, have similar composition and qualities, and\nhave certain relations to the solids, fluids, gases, heat, light,\nelectricity, or galvanism, which are around it. \"Without these, the\nintellectual principle could receive no impulse--could have no agency\nand no relation to the material world. The whole body must gravitate\nor have weight; without which it could neither stand securely, nor\nexert its powers on the bodies around it. But for this, muscular\npower itself, and all the appliances which are related to that power,\nwould be useless. When, therefore, it is affirmed that organization\nor construction is necessary to life, we may at least pause in giving\nassent, under the certainty that we see another and a different reason\nfor the construction of the body. Thus we perceive, that as the body\nmust have weight to have power, so must it have mechanical contrivance,\nor arrangement of its parts. As it must have weight, so must it be\nsustained by a skeleton; and when we examine the bones, which give\nthe body height and shape, we find each column (for in that sense a\nbone may be first taken) adjusted with the finest attention to the\nperpendicular weight that it has to bear, as well as to the lateral\nthrusts to which it is subject in the motions of the body.\"... Again\np. 405, seq.\n\n.... \"Mr. Hunter illustrated the subject thus:--Death is apparent or\nreal. A man dragged out of the water, and to appearance dead, is,\nnotwithstanding, alive, according to the definition we have given.\nThe living endowments of the individual parts are not exhausted. The\nsensibility may be yet roused; the nerves which convey the impression\nmay yet so far retain their property, that other motor nerves may be\ninfluenced through them; the muscles may be once more concatenated, and\ndrawn into a simultaneous action. That vibratory motion which we have\njust said may be witnessed in a muscle recently cut out of the body,\nmay be so excited in a class of muscles--for example, in the muscles\nof inspiration--that the apparently dead draws an inspiration. Here is\nthe first of a series of vital motions which excites the others, and\nthe heart beats, and the blood circulates, and the sensibilities are\nrestored; and the mind, which was in the condition of one asleep, is\nroused into activity and volition, and all the common phenomena of life\nare resuscitated. Such is the series of phenomena which is presented in\napparent death from suffocation; but, if the death has been from an\ninjury of some vital part, the sensibilities and properties of action\nin the rest of the body, though resident for a time, have lost their\nrelations, and there is a link wanting in that chain of vital actions\nwhich restores animation. Here, then, there can be no resuscitation;\nand the death of the individual parts of the body rapidly succeeds the\napparent death of the body.\n\n\"We perceive now that our original conception of life and the terms\nwe use respecting it, in common parlance, are but ill-adapted to this\nsubject when philosophically considered. We early associate life and\nmotion so intimately that the one stands for the other. If we then\ninvestigate by anatomy, we find a curious and minute mechanism in\noperation, an engine and tubes for circulation, and, in short, an\ninternal motion of every particle of the frame; and the anatomist is\nalso led into the error of associating in his mind life with motion and\norganization. But when we consider the subject more closely, and divest\nourselves of habits and prejudices associated with words, we perceive\nthat, without making any vain and even dangerous attempt at definition,\nlife is first to be contemplated as the peculiarity distinguishing\none of two classes into which all matter must be arranged; the one\nclass, which embraces all living matter, is subject to a controlling\ninfluence which resists the chemical agents, and produces a series of\nrevolutions, in an order and at periods prescribed; the other, dead\nmatter, is subject to lapse and change under chemical agency and the\ncommon laws of matter.\n\n\"Let us examine the body of a perfect or a complicated animal. We\nfind each organ possessed of a different power. But there is as yet\nno conventional language adapted to our discourse on this subject,\nand that is the source of many mistakes; for when a man even like\nMr. Hunter had his mind illuminated upon this science, how was he to\nframe his language, when every word that he used had already a meaning\nwhich had no reference to the discovery he had made--to the distinct\nqualities which he had ascertained to belong to the living parts?...\n\n\"The difference between dead and living matter will appear to be, that\nin the one instance the particles are permanently arranged and continue\nto exhibit their proper character, as we term it, until by ingenuity\nand practice some means are found to withdraw the arranging or uniting\ninfluence; and then the matter is chemically dissolved: resolves into\nits elements, and forms new combinations: whilst the life continues,\nnot simply to arrange the particles, and to give them the order or\norganization of the animal body, but to whirl them in a series of\nrevolutions, during all which the material is passive, the law being in\nthe life. The order and succession of these changes and their duration\ndo not result from the material of the frame, which is the same in\nall animals, but from that influence which we term life, and which is\nsuperadded to the material.\" (_Ibid._ 408.)\n\nWriting on Function Mr. Herbert Spencer discusses the following\nquestion. Its interest to our argument is unmistakable.\n\n\"Does Structure originate Function, or does Function originate\nStructure? is a question about which there has been disagreement.\nUsing the word Function in its widest signification, as the totality\nof all vital actions, the question amounts to this--Does Life produce\nOrganization, or does Organization produce Life?\n\n\"To answer this question is not easy, since we habitually find the\ntwo so associated that neither seems possible without the other;\nand they appear uniformly to increase and decrease together....\nThere is, however, one fact implying that Function must be regarded\nas taking precedence of Structure. Of the lowest Rhizopods, which\npresent no distinctions of parts, and nevertheless feed and grow and\nmove about, Prof. Huxley has remarked that they exhibit Life without\nOrganization....\n\n\"It may be argued that on the hypothesis of Evolution, Life necessarily\ncomes before organization. On this hypothesis, organic matter in a\nstate of homogeneous aggregation, must precede organic matter in a\nstate of heterogeneous aggregation. But since the passing from a\nstructureless state to a structured state, is itself a vital process,\nit follows that vital activity must have existed while there was yet\nno structure: structure could not else arise. That function takes\nprecedence of structure, seems also implied in the definition of\nLife. If Life consists of inner actions so adjusted as to balance\nouter actions--if the actions are the _substance_ of Life, while the\nadjustment of them constitutes its _form_; then, may we not say that\nthe actions to be formed must come before that which forms them--that\nthe continuous change which is the basis of function, must come before\nthe structure which brings function into shape? Or again, since\nthroughout all phases of Life up to the highest, every advance is the\neffecting of some better adjustment of inner to outer actions; and\nsince the accompanying new complexity of structure is simply a means\nof making possible this better adjustment; it follows that function is\nfrom beginning to end the determining cause of structure.\"--_Principles\nof Biology_, by Mr. Herbert Spencer, p. 153, seq.\n\nWe now return to Kant, from whom Dr. Whewell quoted the sentence--\"An\norganized product of nature is that in which all the parts are mutually\nends and means.\" Passing by a metaphysical paragraph expressed in a\nmanner too technical for the general reader, Kant's practical comment\non this sentence runs as follows:--\n\n\"Dass die Zergliederer der Gew\u00e4chse und Thiere, um ihre Structur zu\nerforschen und die Gr\u00fcnde einsehen zu k\u00f6nnen, warum und zu welchem\nEnde solche Theile, warum eine solche Lage und Verbindung der Theile\nund gerade diese innere Form ihnen gegeben worden, jene Maxime: dass\nnichts in einem solchen Gesch\u00f6pf UMSONST sey, als unumg\u00e4nglich\nnothwendig annehmen und sie eben so, als den Grundsatz der allgemeinen\nNaturlehre: dass NICHTS VON UNGEF\u00c4HR geschehe, geltend machen,\nist bekannt. In der That k\u00f6nnen sie sich auch von diesem teleologischen\nGrundsatze eben so wenig lossagen, als dem allgemeinen physischen,\nweil, so wie bei Veranlassung des letzteren gar keine Erfahrung\n\u00fcberhaupt, so bei der des ersteren Grundsatzes kein Leitfaden f\u00fcr die\nBeobachtung einer Art von Naturdinge, die wir einmal teleologisch unter\ndem Begriffe der Naturzwecke gedacht haben, \u00fcbrig bleiben w\u00fcrde.\n\n\"Denn dieser Begriff f\u00fchrt die Vernunft in eine ganz andere Ordnung\nder Dinge, als die eines blossen Mechanism der Natur, der uns hier\nnicht mehr genug thun will. Eine Idee soll der M\u00f6glichkeit des\nNaturproducts zum Grunde liegen. Weil diese aber ein absolute Einheit\nder Vorstellung ist, statt dessen die Materie eine Vielheit der Dinge\nist, die f\u00fcr sich keine bestimmte Einheit der Zusammensetzung an\ndie Hand geben kann, so muss, wenn jene Einheit der Idee, sogar als\nBestimmungsgrund _a priori_ eines Naturgesetzes der Causalit\u00e4t einer\nsolchen Form des Zusammengesetzten dienen soll, der Zweck der Natur auf\nALLES, was in ihrem Producte liegt, erstreckt werden; weil, wenn wir\neinmal dergleichen Wirkung im GANZEN auf einen \u00fcbersinnlichen\nBestimmungsgrund \u00fcber den blinden Mechanism der Natur hinaus beziehen,\nwir sie auch ganz nach diesem Princip beurtheilen m\u00fcssen und kein Grund\nda ist, die Form eines solchen Dinges noch zum Theil vom letzteren als\nabh\u00e4ngig anzunehmen, da alsdann bei der Vermischung ungleichartiger\nPrincipien, gar keine sichere Regel der Beurtheilung \u00fcbrig bleiben\nw\u00fcrde.\" _Kritik der Urtheilskraft_, Section 65.\n\nFor the benefit of those who find Kant's German difficult we subjoin a\nneat French Translation from the pen of M. Barni.\n\n\"On sait que ceux qui diss\u00e8quent les plantes et les animaux pour en\n\u00e9tudier la structure, et pouvoir reconna\u00eetre pourquoi et \u00e0 quelle fin\ntelles parties leur ont \u00e9t\u00e9 donn\u00e9es, pourquoi telle disposition et\ntel arrangement des parties, et pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment cette forme int\u00e9rieure,\nadmettent comme indispensablement n\u00e9cessaire cette maxime que rien\nn'existe _en vain_ dans ces cr\u00e9atures, et lui accordent une valeur\n\u00e9gale \u00e0 celle de ce principe de la physique g\u00e9n\u00e9rale, que _rien\nn'arrive par hasard_. Et en effet ils ne peuvent pas plus rejeter ce\nprincipe t\u00e9l\u00e9ologique que le principe universel de la physique; car,\nde m\u00eame qu'en l'absence de ce dernier il n'y aurait plus d'exp\u00e9rience\npossible en g\u00e9n\u00e9ral, de m\u00eame, sans le premier, il n'y aurait plus de\nfil conducteur pour l'observation d'une esp\u00e8ce de choses de la nature,\nque nous avons une fois con\u00e7ues t\u00e9l\u00e9ologiquement sous le concept des\nfins de la nature.\n\n\"En effet ce concept introduit la raison dans un tout autre ordre de\nchoses que celui du pur m\u00e9canisme de la nature, qui ne peut plus ici\nnous satisfaire. Il faut qu'une id\u00e9e serve de principe \u00e0 la possibilit\u00e9\nde la production de la nature. Mais comme une id\u00e9e est une unit\u00e9\nabsolue de r\u00e9pr\u00e9sentation, tandis que la mati\u00e8re est une pluralit\u00e9 de\nchoses qui par elle-m\u00eame ne peut fournir aucune unit\u00e9 d\u00e9termin\u00e9e de\ncomposition, si cette unit\u00e9 de l'id\u00e9e doit servir, comme principe _a\npriori_, \u00e0 d\u00e9terminer une loi naturelle \u00e0 la production d'une forme de\nce genre, il faut que la fin de la nature s'\u00e9tende _\u00e0 tout_ ce qui est\ncontenu dans sa production. En effet, d\u00e8s que pour expliquer un certain\neffet, nous cherchons, au-dessus de l'aveugle m\u00e9canisme de la nature,\nun principe supra-sensible et que nous l'y rapportons _en g\u00e9n\u00e9ral_,\nnous devons le juger tout entier d'apr\u00e8s ce principe; et il n'y a pas\nde raison pour regarder la forme de cette chose comme d\u00e9pendant encore\nen partie de l'autre principe, car alors, dans le m\u00e9lange de principes\nh\u00e9t\u00e9rog\u00e8nes, il ne resterait plus de r\u00e8gle s\u00fbre pour le jugement.\"\n_Critique du Jugement_, Section 65.\n\nKant is not in any dress the easiest of thinkers to follow--a result\npossibly consequent upon the resemblance which his writings bear to\ntrains of reasoning as they pass from the lips of one who thinks aloud.\nThe following paragraph from another work of Dr. Whewell's may be\nuseful to some minds as a comment upon this portion of Kant's teleology.\n\n\"There is yet one other Idea which I shall mention, though it is one\nabout which difficulties have been raised, since the consideration\nof such difficulties may be instructive: the Idea of a purpose, or\nas it is often termed, a _Final Cause_, in organized bodies. It has\nbeen held, and rightly, that the assumption of a Final Cause of each\npart of animals and plants is as inevitable as the assumption of an\nefficient cause of every event. The maxim, that in organized bodies\nnothing is _in vain_, is as necessarily true as the maxim that nothing\nhappens _by chance_. I have elsewhere shown fully that this Idea is\nnot deduced from any special facts, but is assumed as a law governing\nall facts in organic nature, directing the researches and interpreting\nthe observations of physiologists. I have also remarked that it is\nnot at variance with that other law, that plants and that animals are\nconstructed upon general plans, of which plans, it may be, we do not\nsee the necessity, though we see how wide is their generality. This\nIdea of a purpose,--of a Final Cause,--then, thus supplied by our\nminds, is found to be applicable throughout the organic world. It is\nin virtue of this Idea that we conceive animals and plants as subject\nto _disease_; for disease takes place when the parts do not fully\nanswer their _purpose_; when they do not do what they _ought_ to do.\nHow is it then that we thus find an Idea which is _supplied_ by our\nown minds, but which is _exemplified_ in every part of the organic\nworld? Here perhaps the answer will be readily allowed. It is because\nthis Idea is an Idea of the Divine Mind. There _is_ a Final Cause in\nthe constitution of these parts of the universe, and therefore we\ncan interpret them by means of the Idea of Final Cause. We can _see_\na purpose, because there _is_ a purpose. Is it too presumptuous to\nsuppose that we can thus enter into the Ends and Purposes of the Divine\nMind? We willingly grant and declare that it would be presumptuous to\nsuppose that we can enter into them to any but a very small degree.\nThey doubtless go immeasurably beyond our mode of understanding or\nconceiving them. But to a certain extent we _can_ go. We can go so\nfar as to see that they _are_ Ends and Purposes. It is _not_ a vain\npresumption in us to suppose that we know that the eye was made for\nseeing and the ear for hearing. In this the most pious of men see\nnothing impious: the most cautious philosophers see nothing rash. And\nthat we can see thus far into the designs of the Divine Mind, arises,\nwe hold, from this:--that we have an Idea of Design and of Purpose\nwhich, so far as it is merely _that_, is true; and so far, is Design\nand Purpose in the same sense in the one case and in the other.\"[81]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt will be well worth while to close this present series of\nillustrations by a review of Professor Huxley's last published and best\nconsidered positions on Teleology. He printed, in 1871, an article on\nHaeckel's \"Nat\u00fcrliche Sch\u00f6pfungs Geschichte,\" and has now entitled it\n\"The Genealogy of Animals,\" and included it in his recent volume of\nCritiques. We may therefore assume that we here find the distinguished\nBiologist's deliberate opinions. He says, p. 305, \"The Teleology\nwhich supposes that the eye, such as we see it in man or one of the\nhigher _Vertebrata_,[82] was made with the precise structure which\nit exhibits, for the purpose of enabling the animal which possesses\nit to see, has undoubtedly received its death-blow. Nevertheless it\nis necessary to remember that there is a wider Teleology, which is\nnot touched by the doctrine of Evolution, but is actually based upon\nthe fundamental proposition of Evolution. That proposition is, that\nthe whole world, living and not living, is the result of the mutual\ninteraction, according to definite laws, of the forces possessed by\nthe molecules of which the primitive nebulosity of the universe was\ncomposed. If this be true, it is no less certain that the existing\nworld lay, potentially, in the cosmic vapour; and that a sufficient\nintelligence could, from a knowledge of the properties of the molecules\nof that vapour, have predicted, say the state of the Fauna of Britain\nin 1869, with as much certainty as one can say what will happen to the\nvapour of the breath on a cold winter's day.\n\n\"Consider a kitchen clock, which ticks loudly, shows the hours,\nminutes, and seconds, strikes, cries 'cuckoo!' and perhaps shows the\nphases of the moon. When the clock is wound up, all the phenomena which\nit exhibits are potentially contained in its mechanism, and a clever\nclockmaker could predict all it will do after an examination of its\nstructure.\n\n\"If the evolution theory is correct, the molecular structure of the\ncosmic gas stands in the same relation to the phenomena of the world as\nthe structure of the clock to its phenomena.\"\n\nMr. Huxley's comparisons[83] are always amusing, partly because they\nare of an unlooked for description. They also keep up the attention of\nhis readers or hearers. But they have one great fault--the fault we\nnoticed in explaining the nature of analogical argument--they carry\naway the mind too far, and lead the reader often, sometimes the writer\nhimself, into very serious oversights. Let us take notice how the\nProfessor carries out his present similitude. \"Now let us suppose a\ndeath-watch, living in the clock-case, to be a learned and intelligent\nstudent of its works. He might say, 'I find here nothing but matter and\nforce and pure mechanism from beginning to end,' and he would be quite\nright. But if he drew the conclusion that the clock was not contrived\nfor a purpose, he would be quite wrong. On the other hand, imagine\nanother death-watch of a different turn of mind. He, listening to the\nmonotonous 'tick! tick!' so exactly like his own, might arrive at the\nconclusion that the clock was itself a monstrous sort of death-watch,\nand that its final cause and purpose was to tick. How easy to point to\nthe clear relation of the whole mechanism to the pendulum, to the fact\nthat the one thing the clock did always and without intermission was\nto tick, and that all the rest of its phenomena were intermittent and\nsubordinate to ticking! For all this, it is certain that kitchen clocks\nare not contrived for the purpose of making a ticking noise.\n\n\"Thus the teleological theorist would be as wrong as the mechanical\ntheorist, among our death-watches; and, probably, the only death-watch\nwho would be right would be the one who should maintain that the\nsole thing death-watches could be sure about was the nature of the\nclock-works and the way they move; and that the purpose of the clock\nlay wholly beyond the purview of beetle faculties.\n\n\"Substitute 'cosmic vapour' for 'clock,' and 'molecules' for 'works,'\nand the application of the argument is obvious.\" (pp. 306, 7.)\n\nOne thing is very obvious here--and that is a flaw. State the case as\na proposition thus--One or both of the two beetles is to the clock\nand its maker, as man is to the world and its Maker. A tremendous\nassumption--surely as sufficient to have startled Francis Bacon as the\napparition of a new Idol. Is there any possible reason for elevating\na death-watch--thinking in character as a death-watch--into a capable\ninterpreter of clocks? Moreover, the ground principle of our human\nTeleology is that Man holds a lofty relation, not to the Universe only,\nbut to its Maker likewise. He claims, in a word, the most sublime of\nall earthly kinships. The very fact that he can look with intelligent\nand admiring appreciation upon the works of God, justifies his belief\nthat he has a real insight into their excellence, and is so far at\nleast akin to the mind of God. If Mr. Huxley meant that a proportionate\ndegree of insight into clock-making was possessed by his beetles,\nthey would surely have been able to read the clock's dial-plate and\nunderstand the lesson conveyed by its pointers. The death-watch would\nat least say \"_labuntur hor\u00e6_\"--and comprehend that time was being\nregistered--although he might even then fall far short of our human\nbelief \"_pereunt et imputantur_,\" and fail of knowing that time\nregisters itself in a record of moral good and evil.\n\nThe truth is that all mixing up manlike attributes with brute\nanimality, and what seems ten times worse, with machines of wood and\nmetal, can be nothing better than an attempt to produce a sound and\nprolific offspring from some ill-assorted and heterogeneous hybridism.\n\nWe have adverted to this peculiarity of style before and venture\nupon doing so again, because all admirers of Mr. Huxley's great\npowers (and who can read his writings without such admiration?) may\nsurely be justified in wishing that he would discard it at once and\nfor ever. Its practical effect is apparently to assume the real\npoint at issue and to cover up the tacit assumption. That he is\nreally no chance offender in this respect may be gathered from a few\ninstances noted at random. We have just had a couple of philosophic\ndeath-watches[84]--one a Teleologist, the other a Mechanicist--the\nlucubrations of both being neither exactly human, nor yet Coleopterous.\nWe observed before a righteous clock[85]--regularly moral if regularly\nwound up. He has besides a machine, undescribed but endued with a\ngift of ratiocination[86]--and more curious still a piano[87] which\nlistens when it is played upon, and though possessed of only one sense\n(hearing) succeeds in building up \"endless ideas\" of a certain cast\nand cogency. From this self-educated instrument much may of course be\nlooked for, and accordingly we find\n\n    \"Its cogitative faculties immersed\n    In cogibundity of cogitation,\"\n\ntill it evolves from the depth of its consciousness something like an\nidealistic theory of sound. This hypothesis, Mr. Huxley in reply to\nhis piano, refutes, first by an appeal to the material substance of\nthe instrument itself; and secondly to the existence of a musician who\nplays upon it. Will he permit us to accept in like manner the fact of\nour own nobler subsistence, and also the being of One Who attunes its\nsecret heart-strings to notes of sublime melody?\n\nThe monsters aforecited irresistibly remind us of a repartee of\nGoldsmith's. He wittily said that Dr. Johnson would make little fishes\ntalk like great whales. Had they done so it may be doubted whether the\nDoctor's idolatrous biographer would have discovered a minnowy mind\nbeneath their Johnsonian utterances. And we confess to a difficulty of\nour own. The righteous clock is indeed genuinely Huxleian, but what\nshall we say of his mechanical logic, his piano, and his death-watches?\nBy way of illustrating our perplexity let us suppose some rural sexton\nto mix up his own instincts with those of a biological burying beetle.\nThe destiny of all flesh would naturally be determined in the first\nplace by a decent covering of earth. But what about its final end?\nWould that be an aldermanic beetle feast or a _Resurgam_?\n\nThink again how a member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty\nto Animals might breathe a benevolent spirit into a much employed\ndissecting knife. The sharp thing would certainly entertain a\nrepugnance to the horrors of vivisection. There might also be a denial\nof its utility based on the scalpel's personal experience, or perhaps\na moral doubt as to whether such means are justified by the ends\nproposed. Would Mr. Huxley listen to the remonstrance and undertake to\nlift up his powerful voice at Paris or at Berlin besides a few other\nremote places which need not be particularized?\n\nOr finally what ear would he lend to a magnifying glass accustomed\nto habits of observation and possessed by the soul of Spurzheim.\nSuppose it should affirm that a slice of Destructiveness is\nrecognizably different in structure from a section of Benevolence; and\nAcquisitiveness in like manner distinguishable from Ideality! Yet a\nhumanitarian scalpel or Spurzheim magnifying glass may be thought a\nHuxleian phenomenon.\n\nA truce to such mongrel meditations. We gladly turn away from them and\ncontinue our quotations from the Professor's sentiments delivered _in\npropria persona_, recommencing at the place where our last extract\nbroke off. (p. 307.)\n\n\"The teleological and the mechanical views of nature, are not\nnecessarily, mutually exclusive. On the contrary, the more purely a\nmechanist the speculator is, the more firmly does he assume primordial\nmolecular arrangement, of which all the phenomena of the universe\nare the consequences; and the more completely is he thereby at the\nmercy of the teleologist who can always defy him to disprove that\nthis primordial molecular arrangement was not intended to evolve the\nphenomena of the universe.\"\n\nWe quite agree with Mr. Huxley that Mechanism never can exclude final\ncauses, and that a thorough-going theory of Evolution (taken apart\nfrom its excrescences) disables the theorist from all real disproof\nof intention or Design. As we said before, the question of how the\ntheorist's primordial arrangement began, is left unprovided for. And if\na beginning, so certainly an _end_. The more steadily the first state\nof the Universe conceivable by Science is contemplated, the wider and\nmore determinate the view thus taken, the more evident it becomes that\nthe ground occupied by Natural Theology is not fenced off by the iron\npale of Mechanism. The fencer is (as Huxley says) \"at the mercy of the\nTeleologist.\"\n\nThe Professor's next sentence deserves careful consideration--\"On the\nother hand, if the teleologists assert that this, that, or the other\nresult of the working of any part of the mechanism of the universe is\nits purpose and final cause, the mechanist can always inquire how he\nknows that it is more than an unessential incident--the mere ticking of\nthe clock, which he mistakes for its function.\"\n\nHow far this criticism holds good of many well-meant treatises\nfilled with special instances of Design is a question for candid\nconsideration. Meantime the whole sentence amounts to this\nconclusion:--We must distinguish between such wide arguments as Baden\nPowell's, and the details of certain writers who have dealt with what\nthey thought good examples and illustrations of a grand universal\nprinciple. And that such is Mr. Huxley's meaning we may perceive from\nanother paragraph immediately preceding our first extract. (p. 305.)\n\n\"In more than one place, Professor Haeckel enlarges upon the service\nwhich the _Origin of Species_ has done, in favouring what he terms\nthe 'causal or mechanical' view of living nature as opposed to the\n'teleological or vitalistic' view. And no doubt it is quite true that\nthe doctrine of Evolution is the most formidable opponent of all\nthe commoner and coarser forms of Teleology. But perhaps the most\nremarkable service to the philosophy of Biology rendered by Mr. Darwin\nis the reconciliation of Teleology and Morphology, and the explanation\nof the facts of both which his views offer.\"\n\nNow, such being the state of facts, we may refuse to say with Huxley\nthat the following question (asked p. 307) is \"not irrational.\" \"Why\ntrouble oneself about matters which are out of reach, when the working\nof the mechanism itself, which is of infinite practical importance,\naffords scope for all our energies?\"\n\nWe cannot forego our trouble, for two reasons. _First_, according to\nthe statements before quoted, Mr. Darwin's researches have improved the\ncase for Teleology. Advocates of Design may therefore take courage,\nthey have gained a potent alliance. _Secondly_, \"the practical working\nof the Mechanism itself\" is very far, we think, from being our All--so\nfar, indeed, that it sinks into insignificance compared with the hope\nof Immortality. Our highest interest lies in gathering such information\nas we can regarding Him with Whom we have to do as the Arbiter of our\nfuture existence. Above all things, we desire Him to be our Father and\nour Friend. Perchance His attributes are not matters out of reach. He\nmay be very near to every one of us, if we are indeed His Offspring.\n\nAnother opinion of Professor Huxley's is of great auxiliary value to\nthe argument from Design. The structures mentioned have to some minds\nappeared as its most serious difficulties. \"Professor Haeckel,\" he\nexplains, \"has invented a new and convenient name, 'Dysteleology,'\nfor the study of the 'purposelessnesses' which are observable in\nliving organisms--such as the multitudinous cases of rudimentary and\napparently useless structures. I confess, however, that it has often\nappeared to me that the facts of Dysteleology cut two ways. If we are\nto assume, as evolutionists in general do, that useless organs atrophy,\nsuch cases as the existence of lateral rudiments of toes, in the foot\nof a horse, place us in a dilemma. For, either these rudiments are of\nno use to the animal, in which case, considering that the horse has\nexisted in its present form since the Pliocene epoch, they surely ought\nto have disappeared; or they are of some use to the animal, in which\ncase they are of no use as arguments against Teleology.\" (p. 307.) It\nwould be hard to overestimate the value of this opinion, still more\nhard to overrate its genuine and outspoken honesty.\n\nMr. Huxley places at the end of his recent volume a passage from Bishop\nBerkeley which we will venture to borrow by way of conclusion to this\nlengthy note:--\n\n\"You see, Hylas, the water of yonder fountain, how it is forced\nupwards in a round column to a certain height, at which it breaks and\nfalls back into the basin from whence it rose; its ascent as well\nas its descent proceeding from the same uniform law or principle of\ngravitation. Just so, the same principles which, at first view, lead to\nscepticism, pursued to a certain point, bring men back to common sense.\"\n\n_Adsit omen!_ May it be even thus with our large-minded Professor\nand with all other sovereign princes of Biology--[Greek: Hile\u00f4s'\nAskl\u00eapios]!\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[14] See more particularly Chapter V., \"Production and its Law.\"\n\n[15] Most literary people are aware that it was borrowed by Paley\nhimself. A reference very accessible to ordinary readers may be made\nto Knight's English Cyclop\u00e6dia, Article _Nieuwentyt_. \"A work,\" says\nthe biographer, \"was published by him at Amsterdam in 1715, in one\nvolume 4to, entitled 'The right use of Contemplating the Works of the\nCreator': the object of the author is first to convince atheists of\nthe existence of a supreme and benevolent Creator, by contemplating\nthe mechanism of the heavens, the structure of animals, etc.; and,\nsecondly, to remove the doubts of deists concerning revealed religion.\nIt was originally published in Dutch, but has passed through several\neditions, in German, French, and English. The English editions,\ntranslated by Chamberlayne, under the title of the 'Religious\nPhilosopher,' appeared at London in 1718-19 and 1730, in three vols.\n8vo. This work, as was first pointed out in the _Athen\u00e6um_ for 1848,\npp. 803, 907, 930, served as the basis for Paley's 'Natural Theology,'\nthe general argument and many of the illustrations in that remarkable\nwork being directly copied--and without the slightest acknowledgment,\nthough Paley was acquainted with the book--from the 'Religious\nPhilosopher.'\"\n\nLord Brougham, who does not appear to have seen Bernard Nieuwentyt's\nbook, believes that Derham supplied the fountain from which Paley drank\nso freely. Apparently he used both.\n\nTo this note it may be added that the want of Natural Philosophy under\nwhich the Archdeacon himself laboured, has been recently commented on\nin the following terms:--\n\n\"Paley kicked his foot unconcernedly against the stone he found on\nthe heath; for anything he knew, he says, it might have been there\nfor ever. Geology was then a practically unknown science, or he might\nhave found epochs of history in the stone, and evidence of all manner\nof special creations for man's benefit. But Paley was no natural\nphilosopher, only a half-learned theologian, who skimmed over all\ndifficulties, and produced a book which has done immense harm in\nleading Englishmen to anthropomorphic conceptions of God.\"--_Report of\nan Address by A. J. Ellis, President of the Philological Society, in an\nAmerican Newspaper_ (_the Index_) _for August 10th, 1872_.\n\n[k] So Hume (Inquiry, Section IV.): \"A man, finding a watch or any\nother machine in a desert island, would conclude that there had once\nbeen men in that island.\" And again (Id. Section V.): \"A man who should\nfind in a desert country the remains of pompous buildings, would\nconclude that the country had in ancient times been cultivated by\ncivilized inhabitants but did nothing of this nature occur to him, he\ncould never form such an inference.\" The inference is, as Hume says,\nfrom effect to cause--a subject which he is here investigating _more\nsuo_. To the nature of this inference I have found reason for recurring\nmore than once.\n\n[16] A striking peculiarity of this skeleton is thus described by\nProfessor Huxley (\"Manual of the Anatomy of Vertebrated Animals,\"\np. 217). \"In many _Lacertilia_ (_Lacert\u00e6_, _Iguan\u00e6_, _Geckos_) the\ncaudal vertebr\u00e6 have a very singular structure, the middle of each\nbeing traversed by a thin, unossified, transverse septum. The vertebra\nnaturally breaks with great readiness through the plane of the septum,\nand when such lizards are seized by the tail, that appendage is pretty\ncertain to part at one of these weak points.\"\n\n[l] \"God,\" says Dogberry, \"is a good Man.\" So others besides Dogberry.\n\nCuriously enough, the charge of Anthropomorphism has been brought by\na most eminent naturalist against the greatest authorities on Natural\nSelection.\n\nM. Edouard Clapar\u00e8de writes as follows in the \"Archives des Sciences\nPhysiques et Naturelles\" for 1870:--\n\n\"Mon but est seulement de montrer que les armes dont M. Wallace se sert\nvictorieusement pour attaquer le duc d'Argyll, se retournent contre\nlui-m\u00eame. Sans doute, c'est un pur anthropomorphisme que de supposer\nchez un Cr\u00e9ateur un sentiment du Beau enti\u00e8rement semblable au n\u00f4tre,\net une telle hypoth\u00e8se n'a rien \u00e0 faire avec la science. Mais cet\nautre anthropomorphisme par lequel les Darwinistes supposent chez les\noiseaux un sens du Beau identique au n\u00f4tre, est il plus justifi\u00e9? Soit\nM. Darwin, soit M. Wallace, expliquent la formation de la belle voix\net du beau plumage chez les oiseaux m\u00e2les par s\u00e9lection sexuelle. Les\nfemelles sont cens\u00e9es donner toujours la pr\u00e9f\u00e9rence aux m\u00e2les, qui,\nau point de vue humain, ont la plus belle voix et les plus brillantes\ncouleurs. Au contraire, chez toutes les esp\u00e8ces \u00e0 cri d\u00e9sagr\u00e8able\npour l'oreille humaine et \u00e0 couleur sombre, la nature du cri comme de\nla couleur a d\u00fb sa formation \u00e0 une autre forme de s\u00e9lection que la\ns\u00e9lection sexuelle. Quel oubli de l'antique dicton: _De gustibus et\ncoloribus non est disputandum_! Si ce dicton a \u00e9t\u00e9 reconnu vrai chez\ntoutes les nations civilis\u00e9es, il acquiert une force bien autrement\ngrande lorsqu'il s'agit de son application \u00e0 des oiseaux. Serait il\nabsurde de supposer chez certains oiseaux un go\u00fbt prononc\u00e9 pour les\ncouleurs sombres, comme ce go\u00fbt existe chez beaucoup d'hommes? Et alors\nne devient-il pas possible, contrairement \u00e0 MM. Darwin et Wallace,\nd'expliquer la couleur terne de certaines esp\u00e8ces par s\u00e9lection\nsexuelle? N'en peut-il pas \u00eatre de m\u00eame pour la voix criarde de tel ou\ntel volatile? Certes, il est dangereux de baser un \u00e9difice sur quelque\nchose d'aussi subjectif qu'un sentiment, quelque soit du reste la\nnature de l'\u00eatre chez lequel on le suppose plus ou moins gratuitement,\noiseau ou Cr\u00e9ateur!\" (pp. 175-6.)\n\n[m] If any one desires to see how early and how persistently this\ndifficulty attached itself to the Design Analogy, I may be permitted to\nrefer him to a thin volume of my own, entitled \"Right and Wrong,\" pp.\n17-22 (text and notes), and Appendix, pp. 58-60.\n\nA similar Dualism (coupled with the charge of Anthropomorphism) is\nfrequently urged against Natural Theology at the present day. The\nalternative proposed has been called Monism. The fixed unyielding realm\nof Abiology (inorganic nature) is taken as the type of the universe.\nThe sole supposable Divine principle (or Spirit) is identified with\nits law, which is in turn pronounced identical with philosophical\nnecessity--that is to say, a necessity not imposed by or flowing from\nthe Divine will, but a necessity which annihilates the possibility of\nall will. The Divine principle thus supposed is simply that law or\nforce which is embodied in the mechanism of the universe.\n\nProfessor Haeckel of Jena is the author of a book which has been styled\nin Germany, \"The Bible of Darwinism.\" The following passages will show\nhow he treats the subject under consideration in the text. He writes\n(Generelle Morphologie der Organismen, Book II. cap. vi. sec. 2, \"On\nCreation\") to the following effect:--\n\n\"THE CONCEPTION OF CREATION is either altogether unimaginable,\nor at least perfectly inconsistent with that pure intuition of Nature\nfounded on an empirical basis. In Abiology a creation is no longer\nanywhere spoken of at all, and it is in Biology only that people are\nstill closely wrapped up in this error. The conception of creation\nis perfectly unimaginable, if by it is understood 'an origination of\nsomething out of nothing.' This acceptation is quite incompatible\nwith one of the first and chiefest of Nature's laws--one, indeed,\nuniversally acknowledged--namely, with the great law, that ALL\nMATTER IS ETERNAL.\" (Vol. i. p. 171.)\n\nThere is one general reflection which may fairly strike the honest\nand ingenuous mind respecting the difficulties thus \"Now if the\nconception of such an immaterial force, discoverable exterior to\nmatter, independent of, yet nevertheless acting upon it, is absolutely\ninadmissible and inconceivable in itself, then so, too, becomes the\nconception of a creative power from our point of view; and all the\nmore so, since with it are united the most untenable teleological\nconceptions, and the most palpable Anthropomorphism.\"... \"In all these\nteleological conceptions, and similarly in all histories of creation\nwhich the poetical phantasy of men has produced, gross Anthropomorphism\nis so evident, that we may leave the denial of this Creation-idea\nto the insight of any general reader who thinks for himself, and is\nnot too far involved in traditional prejudices.\"... \"A creation of\norganisms is, therefore, partly quite unimaginable, partly in such\ncomplete contradiction to all knowledge of nature empirically gained,\nthat we cannot in any case allow ourselves to end by accepting this\nhypothesis. There remains, consequently, nothing else but to suppose a\nspontaneous origination of the simplest organisms, from which all more\nperfect ones developed themselves by gradual metamorphosis--that is to\nsay, a self-forming or self-configuration of matter into organization,\nwhich is generally called primordial production or spontaneous\ngeneration (_generatio \u00e6quivoca_). (Ibid. 173-4.)\n\nHaeckel commences his section upon Dualism and Monism (Book I. cap. iv.\nsection 6), with the following quotation from August Schleicher (die\nDarwinische Theorie und die Sprachwissenschaft: Weimar, 1863, p. 8):--\n\n\"The tendency of modern thought is undeniably towards _Monism_.\n_Dualism_--whether you are pleased to define it as the contrast of\nspirit and nature, of contents and form, of appearance and reality--is\nno longer a firm ground to stand upon, if we wish to survey the\nfield of modern science. To the latter there is no matter without\nspirit (_i.e._ without the unavoidable necessity that governs it),\nnor, on the other hand, is there any spirit without matter. We might\nsay, perhaps, that there is neither matter nor spirit in the usual\nacceptation of the words, but only a something which is the one and\nthe other at the same time. To charge this view--which is founded on\nobservation--with materialism, is equally unjust as to lay it at the\ndoor of spiritualism.\"\n\nHaeckel concludes this section by avowing an unalterable conviction of\nthe truth of Monism, with which his mind is thoroughly penetrated.\n\nThe extracts above given will explain the value of those distinctions\nrespecting Law and Causation, which are drawn in the latter part of\nthis chapter. The wider subject pertains, however, to Chapter V., where\nit is discussed at some length.\n\n[17] Many readers may be pleased by a perusal of Lord Brougham's\n\"Dissertation on the Origin of Evil.\" It gives an account of\nvarious hypotheses, and ends with some interesting remarks. See his\n\"Dissertations on Subjects of Science connected with Natural Theology,\"\nvol. ii.\n\n[18] Even Lord Brougham, whom no one will accuse of a too ardent\naddiction to metaphysical pursuits, chides Paley very severely for\nthis neglect. Dr. Whewell's censure is more grave. Passages from these\ncriticisms are given in Additional Note A, with some explanations which\nmay conduce to a clear insight of what is meant by bad metaphysics,\nparticularly in relation to the subject before us.\n\n[19] Compare the figure employed in Rev. xxi. 1.\n\n[n] There seems little doubt that the popular phrase \"Design proves\na Designer\" has given rise to an extensive distrust of the Design\nargument _in toto_. Compare Additional Note B.\n\n[o] Another shape of the objection is stated and examined in Additional\nNote C.\n\n[20] Essay on the \"Spirit of the Inductive Philosophy,\" Ed. 2, p. 174.\nThe italics and capitals are Professor Powell's.\n\n[p] Were Paley now alive, he might plead the example of Mr. Darwin,\nwhose practice it is to speak of any incidental chasm occasioned by\nthe link sometimes missing from his premises, as \"not a long step.\"\n\"Mr. Darwin's argument,\" says a reviewer of his \"Descent of Man,\" \"is\na continuous conjugation of the potential mood. It rings the changes\non 'can have been,' 'might have been,' 'would have been,' 'should\nhave been,' until it leaps with a wide bound into 'must have been.'\"\n(_Times_, April 8, 1871.) Any similarity between the reasonings of\nthe Archdeacon and the Naturalist may appear noteworthy. But the\ncoincidence ends here. Paley, though reproved by a Lord Chancellor, had\nthe good fortune to be excused by a Bishop. There is a short account\nof both censure and defence in the notes to Powell's \"Connection of\nNatural and Divine Truth,\" pp. 287-9.\n\n[21] P. 177.\n\n[22] Ibid.\n\n[23] Ibid.\n\n[24] Pp. 175-6.\n\n[25] Putting aside workmanship exercised on given material, we may\nperceive a gliding of thought from the idea of plan, form, or fashion,\nto adaptation, and so onwards to purpose and intention--that is,\nconscious adaptation to a designed end.\n\n[26] \"S\u00e4mmtliche Werke,\" vol. II., pp. 51, 52.\n\n[27] \"Connexion of Natural and Divine Truth,\" pp. 183-4.\n\n[28] See the work last quoted, pp. 287-9. The Professor substantially\nagrees with Lord Brougham's censure before referred to, and considers\nDr. Turton's defence of Paley an insufficient apology.\n\n[29] \"Essays and Reviews,\" 8vo. p. 125.\n\n[q] The general reader may reasonably feel a difficulty in assigning\ntheir proper meaning to terms used in senses so technical. He may\npossibly be assisted by looking over the field of view thus:--A Force\nis visible to us as a movement in Nature;--when we try to formulate it\nintelligently to ourselves, its mental equivalent is Law. If, then,\nwe wish to describe an intelligent pr\u00e6-conception of Law (such as\ndistinctly involves the Foresight of its operation) we call the Law\na Creative Idea, or (less definitely) a Design. Tracing the chain of\ncausation in the reverse or downward direction, the Idea when put in\nmovement appears to our mind's eye as Law; and when we wish to include\nits actual working upon the realm of Nature we term it a Force.\n\nBoth James Mill and his son (a truly affectionate annotator), are\ncareful to point out that the essence of moral causation involves\nIntention--that is (as Mr. Mill explains), Foresight, or expectation of\nconsequences.--\"Analysis of the Human Mind,\" II., 400, 401.\n\nIt should be observed that in many branches of Natural Science the\nword Law is so employed as to include the conception of Force. Law\nis in this usage not merely a logical formula expressive of realized\nfacts, but it involves the idea of the coercion or impellent motion\nwhich brought those facts into being. \"Thus, then,\" says Dr. Carpenter,\n\"whilst no Law, which is simply _a generalisation of phenomena_, can be\nconsidered as having any _coercive_ action, we may assign that value\nto Laws which express _the universal conditions of the action of a\nForce_, the existence of which we learn from the testimony of our own\nconsciousness.\" He had before remarked that \"it is the substitution of\nthe Dynamical for the mere Phenomenal idea, which gives their highest\nvalue to our conceptions of the Order of Nature.\"--_Address to British\nAssociation at Brighton, August, 1872._ This _Order_ of Nature, as the\nlearned President says in conclusion, is no \"sufficient account of its\n_Cause_.\"\n\n[30] See how the matter appears to a Satirist:--\"By the great variety\nof theories here alluded to, every one of which, if thoroughly\nexamined, will be found surprisingly consistent in all its parts; my\nunlearned readers will perhaps be led to conclude that the creation\nof a world is not so difficult a task as they at first imagined. I\nhave shown at least a score of ingenious methods in which a world\ncould be constructed; and I have no doubt that had any of the\nphilosophers above quoted the use of a good manageable comet, and the\nphilosophical warehouse, _chaos_, at his command, he would engage\nto manufacture a planet as good, or, if you will take his word for\nit, better than this we inhabit.\" Such is the dictum of the profound\nKnickerbocker,--\"History of New York,\" 8vo, p. 16. His variety\nof theories concludes with that of \"the renowned Dr. Darwin,\" of\nLichfield. If the history were brought down to our day, additional\nvariety might be given to this part of it.\n\n[r] It is upon this confusion that Powell charges Pantheistic theories\nin which physical speculations are mistakenly supposed to have their\nnatural termination. See Additional Note D, where the passage to which\nmore than one reference has already been made, is given _in extenso_.\nCompare also our Chapter VI. on Causation.\n\n[31] Essay as above, p. 165.\n\n[32] The signification attached by the Professor to Law and Cause may\nbe most readily explained by a similitude. Let the physical series of\nantecedents and consequents be represented by a chain of which we see\nthe present links, but both its beginning and its end are invisible.\nPhysical law is this chain. Cause must not be considered its first\nlink, for Cause differs in _kind_ from the series, is in truth _sui\ngeneris_, and can be illustrated by no physical phenomenon, but by\nthe fact of our own Moral Volition. Cause, therefore, is external to\nthe chain, and originates, not only the first, but every link of it.\nEach and all--nay, the universal chain in its entirety--may be viewed\nas owing its existence to one single fiat of an absolute moral Cause.\nCompare on this subject Chapters VI. and VII. ensuing.\n\n[33] Essay, pp. 155, 173. It should, however, be observed that\nSterling's language has been interpreted two opposite ways, and\ntherefore the obscurity may be verbal. Coleridge's expressions have\nregard to certain \"so-called _Demonstrations_.\" His own judgment as to\nthe cumulative proofs of Theism was that \"there are so many convincing\nreasons for it, within and without--a grain of sand sufficing, and\na whole universe at hand to echo the decision!--that for every mind\nnot devoid of all reason, and desperately conscience-proof, the\nTruth which it is the least possible to prove, it is little less\nthan impossible not to believe; only indeed just so much short of\nimpossible, as to leave some room for the will and the moral election,\nand thereby to keep it a truth of religion, and the possible subject of\na commandment.\"--_Aids to Reflection_, Edition 1843, Vol. I. p. 135.\nFirst and rare edition, p. 177.\n\n[34] \"There is thus no alternative, but either to abandon the inquiry\nafter an immediate intuition of power, or to seek for it in _mind\nas determining its own modifications_; a course open to those who\nadmit an immediate consciousness of self, and to them only. My first\nand only presentation of power or causality is thus to be found in\nmy consciousness of _myself as willing_. In every act of volition,\nI am fully conscious that it is in my power to form the resolution\nor to abstain; and this constitutes the presentative consciousness\nof free-will and of power. Like any other simple idea, it cannot\nbe defined; and hence the difficulty of verbally distinguishing\ncausation from mere succession. But every man who has been conscious\nof an act of will, has been conscious of power therein; and to one\nwho has not been so conscious, no verbal description can supply the\ndeficiency.\"--_Prolegomena Logica_, p. 151.\n\n[s] It seems singular that this rise of thought has of late years\nseldom been explicitly put forward as the natural continuation and\nnecessary extension of the argument from Design. \"He that planted the\near, shall He not hear? He that formed the eye, shall He not see?... He\nthat teacheth man knowledge, _shall not He know?_\" In other words, if\nwe may argue from the structure of the eye and ear to an Intelligence\nwhich comprehends our sense-perceptions, their conditions, and their\nactivities, may we not always argue from the reason of man to an\nIntelligence comprehending our highest human endowments?\n\nIf so, we reflect these attributes back upon our explanation of the\nnatural world. We say, further, that such a Creator would never make a\nmere _machine_. Humanity was a necessary complement of all that is set\nunder Man. And thus Francis Bacon's aphorism may be applied in a double\nsense,--Man not only interprets Nature to himself--but he affords in\nhimself a text for her more complete interpretation. Nature and Human\nNature are two correlatives.\n\n[35] Take, as example, the scientific theories on Insanity and its\nmelancholy accompaniments. How many theorizers seem to justify Sir\nWilliam Ellis's old observation, that few of his medical brethren ever\ngot much notion of Mind?\n\n[36] \"Natural Theology attempts to demonstrate the existence of a\npersonal First Cause, supreme Reason, and Will. The relations of\nmankind towards such a Being are called Natural Religion.\"--_Right and\nWrong_, p. 58.\n\n[37] If any one wishes to convince himself that other meanings proposed\nare open to serious objections, let him peruse Max M\u00fcller's first\nLecture on the Science of Religion.\n\n[38] Compare Additional Note E, on the extent and divisions of the\nScience of Natural Theology.\n\n[39] The Soul, p. 32, seq.\n\n[40] Any strictures of ours on the language employed by Natural\nTheologians must be understood as appeals from individual or peculiar\nusage to world-wide acceptation and old established custom:--\n\n    \"Quem penes arbitrium est et jus et norma loquendi.\"\n\n\n[41] As regards another important word illustrated in this chapter,\nit may be useful to add that the term Analogy is often employed in\na wide or rather vague signification; not only by careless writers,\nbut by philosophers. There is an important passage in Bacon's Plan of\nthe Instauratio (prefixed to the Novum Organon) which Wood translates\nthus:--\"The testimony and information of the senses bears always a\nrelation to man, and not to the universe, and it is altogether a great\nmistake to assert that our senses are the measure of things.\n\nThe Latin original for \"bears a relation\" is \"est ex analogi\u00e2,\" but\nMr. Ellis prefers rendering it by \"has reference to,\" and confirms his\ndecision by comparing two other Latin phrases;--one, \"Materia non est\ncognoscibilis nisi _ex analogi\u00e2_ form\u00e6\"--the other, \"Materia non est\nscibilis nisi _in ordine_ ad formam;--ut dicit\" (adds Thomas Aquinas)\n\"Philosophus in primo Physicorum.\" Mr. Ellis subjoins \"That the meaning\nof the word Analogy was misconceived by S. Thomas, by Duns Scotus, and\nby the schoolmen in general, is pointed out by Zabarella, _De prim.\nrerum materi\u00e2_, I. 4.\"\n\n\"Philosophus\" means Aristotle, who, however, in the passage referred to\nis faithful to his own correct definition of Analogy, and his instance\nmay readily be stated in four terms, as will appear on reference to the\npassage (Ed. Bekker 191, a. 8). Argyropylus translates by \"similitudine\nrationis,\" and St. Hilaire explains \"analogia\" for the benefit of the\ngeneral reader by \"rapport proportionnel\"--(Le\u00e7ons de Physique I. 8, s.\n18).\n\nThat Bacon was really thus vague in his use of \"ex analogi\u00e2\" may be\ngathered from his substitution of \"in ordine ad\" as an equivalent in\nthe closely related passage, Nov. Org. II. 20. Such being the case with\nso great a writer, some little allowance may be made for difference of\nphrase employed by ordinary reasoners on Natural Theology.\n\n[42] By way of assisting the young student to a clear perception of\nwhat is involved in our Science, we illustrate its ground-work at\nconsiderable length in an additional note (marked F) on Teleology.\n\n[43] \"Die rechte Erkenntniss kann sich erst dann einfinden wenn man\nweiss wie man erkennt d. h. wenn man seine eigene Natur begriffen hat.\"\nPage 5 of \"Ueber den Ursprung der Sprache,\" von W. H. J. Bleek.\n\n[44] Macaulay's Essays. Ed. 1852, p. 401.\n\n[45] The division of Sciences into ancillary and \"architectonic\" is\nAristotelian. It seems also founded in the nature of things. That real\nscience tends to ground itself, strives after unification with kindred\nsciences, and, by so doing, rises into philosophy, is a fact visible\nin every line and letter of Faraday; and the general reader will find\nit exemplified throughout many fascinating pages of Dr. Tyndall's\n_Fragments of Science for Unscientific People_, particularly in his\narticles on Vitality, the use of the Imagination, and the life of\nFaraday, not to mention his own book on the great inductive philosopher.\n\n[46] It is interesting to compare the French-Scotch, and German-Scotch\ntypes of intellect. The former flowered in the Stuart men and in\nDavid Hume. The latter produced such diversely graven characters\nas Sir William Hamilton and Mr. Carlyle. Hume's natural acuteness\nreceived a subtle refinement from his Jesuit educators at La Fl\u00eache.\nBut his intellectual bent and determination was given by the French\nparlour-philosophy, which heralded Rousseau and Robespierre. Hume's\nwell-known face is a truthful index to his mind. If compared with\nKant's, the lesson is obvious to even an unskilled physiognomist.\nSelf-complacency beams over every feature.\n\n[47] No doubt the actual course of Hume's philosophising was determined\nby his zeal against everything he deemed superstitious. It was this\ndominant motive which made him less a calm philosopher than a skilful\nadvocate, and laid him open to the influences of the French Deism of\nhis period. How strong the tendency was we may infer from the following\nanecdote, which occurs in an account of his declining days by his\nfriend and admirer, Dr. Adam Smith (pp. 47-50):--\n\nHume had been \"reading a few days before, Lucian's Dialogues of the\nDead: among all the excuses which are alleged to Charon for not\nentering readily into his boat, he could not find one that fitted\nhim. He then diverted himself with inventing several jocular excuses,\nwhich he supposed he might make to Charon, and with imagining the very\nsurly answers which it might suit the character of Charon to return to\nthem. 'Upon further consideration,' said he, 'I thought I might say to\nhim, Good Charon, I have been correcting my works for a new edition.\nAllow me a little time that I may see how the Public receives the\nalterations.' But Charon would answer, 'When you have seen the effect\nof these, you will be for making other alterations. There will be no\nend of such excuses; so, honest friend, please step into the boat.'\nBut I might still urge, 'Have a little patience, good Charon; I have\nbeen endeavouring to open the eyes of the Public. If I live a few years\nlonger, I may have the satisfaction of seeing the downfall of some of\nthe prevailing systems of superstition.' But Charon would then lose all\ntemper and decency. 'You loitering rogue, that will not happen these\nmany hundred years. Do you fancy I will grant you a lease for so long a\nterm? Get into the boat this instant, you lazy loitering rogue!'\"\n\n[48] The \"Treatise\" was written during his youthful three years'\nresidence in France, chiefly at La Fl\u00eache. Hume was twenty-seven years\nold when he published it. See \"Life,\" pp. 6 and 7, and Burton's _Life\nof Hume_, Vol. I. pp. 57-124.\n\n[49] This work, the least known of all Hume's writings, but not the\nleast original, is here cited in the not uncommon reprint 2 vols. 8vo,\n1817.\n\n[50] It is curious to compare with both Hume and Bacon a brief\ndictum of S. T. Coleridge. Biog. Lit., last chapter. \"Poor unlucky\nMetaphysics! And what are they? A single sentence expresses the object\nand thereby the contents of this science. [Greek: Gn\u00f4thi seauton]: et\nDeum quantum licet et in Deo omnia scibis. Know thyself: and so shalt\nthou know God, as far as is permitted to a creature, and in God all\nthings. Surely there is a strange--nay, rather a too natural--aversion\nin many to know themselves.\" \"People,\" says Guesses at Truth, \"can\nseldom brook contradiction, except within themselves.\"\n\n[51] Compare Advancement. B. II. with De Augmentis. B. III. Chap. iii.\n\n[52] De Augmentis. B. III. Chap. iv.\n\n[53] Advancement. B. II. (Ed. Basil Montague, Vol. II. p. 134). It is\ngenerally an advantage to quote from the enlarged Treatise, the De\nAugmentis, but in some places the Advancement is more simple and more\nfull.\n\n[54] De Augmentis. B. III. Chap. iv. init.\n\n[55] De Augmentis. B. III. Chap. iv. Ellis and Spedding, iv. 362.\n\n[56] \"The cone and vertical point\" itself is \"the work which God\nworketh,\"--(\"summariam nempe Natur\u00e6 legem\")--and \"it may fairly be\ndoubted whether man's inquiry can attain to it. But these three are\nthe true stages of knowledge.\" De Augmentis, as before. So too in his\n_Valerius_ he speaks of this \"highest generality of motion or summary\nlaw of Nature\" as reserved by God \"within His own curtain.\"\n\n[57] The great thinker speaks of it as made up in part \"of the common\nprinciples and axioms which are promiscuous and indifferent to\nseveral Sciences;\" in part \"of the inquiry touching the operation of\nthe relative and adventitious conditions of Essences, as quantity,\nsimilitude, diversity, possibility, and the rest.\" These he terms\n\"Transcendentals,\" and they form a highest kind of philosophical\narrangements, \"with this distinction and provision, that they be\nhandled as they have efficiency in Nature and not logically.\"\n\nHis instances of common principles show how very vaguely this idea\nof the first division floated before his mind. Some of them are\naxioms mathematically certain and true in more than one province of\nphilosophy, others are generalized truths obtained by experience or by\ncomparison of objects diverse in appearance, but to his mind identical\nor very similar. Among these latter occurs his celebrated saying, that\n\"the delight of the quavering upon a stop in music is the same with\nthe playing of light upon the water\";--a thought that haunts us by the\nseaside and on the shore of mountain lakes while listening to some\nsweet voice or clear-toned instrument.\n\nFrom his philosophical arrangements Bacon takes away inquiries into the\nOne, the Good, and the Divine, and assigns them to Natural Theology.\n\n[58] Translation of the De Augmentis in Ellis and Spedding. Vol. iv. p.\n346.\n\n[59] Nov. Org. E. and S., iv. 120.\n\n[60] De Augmentis. E. and S., iv. 362.\n\n[61] Kitchin. Nov. Org. p. 134. But Mr. Kitchin believes that could\nBacon have witnessed the actual progress of science, it would have\nled him to recognize the usefulness of Final Causes, in the field of\nphysical inquiry, and by way of illustration proceeds to quote \"the\nfamous case of Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood from\nthe consideration of the Final Causes of the valves in the veins of the\nanimal body.\" (Ibid. p. 135.)\n\n[62] Mill's Analysis of the Human Mind. Vol. ii. pp. 310, 11.\n\n[63] In a volume of philosophical Romance some unknown Gulliver\nof the 19th century bestows many pages of pleasant satire on the\nUtilitarian principle, assumed as a maxim of social life and pushed\nto its ultimate conclusions. The author travels into the country of\nNowhere (Erewhon), and learns by personal experience, first in a\nprison, and next in the house of a princely swindler Senoj Nosnibor\n(_alias_ Jones Robinson) those true laws of Sociology which best\nsubserve the great final end--the noble object laid down by Mr. Mill.\nIll-health is made criminal. Immorality counts as being out of sorts.\nThe former is an object of penal justice, the latter of condolence\njoined with alterative discipline. The swindler sends for his family\n\"straightener,\" and gets well amidst the sympathy of his friends;\nthe consumptive is condemned to imprisonment and hard labour for the\nrest of his miserable days. And this is reasonable in itself, and\njustified by the results,--the Erewhonians possess the finest physique\nin the world, and rob and embezzle only when they happen to feel\ntempted. Our traveller himself, though full of old-fashioned moral\nprejudices, becomes convinced by contemplating the great final cause.\n\"That dislike,\" he observes, \"and even disgust should be felt by the\nfortunate for the unfortunate, or at any rate for those who have been\ndiscovered to have met with any of the more serious and less familiar\nmisfortunes, is not only natural, but desirable for any society,\nwhether of man or brute: what progress either of body or soul had been\notherwise possible?\"--and again, \"I write with great diffidence, but\nit seems to me that there is no unfairness in punishing people for\ntheir misfortunes or rewarding them for their sheer good luck: it is\nthe normal condition of human life that this should be done, and no\nright-minded person will complain at being subjected to the common\ntreatment. There is no alternative open to us. It is idle to say that\nmen are not responsible for their misfortunes. What is responsibility?\nSurely to be responsible means to be liable to have to give an answer\nshould it be demanded, and all things which live are responsible for\ntheir lives and actions, should society see fit to question them\nthrough the mouth of its authorised agent. What is the offence of a\nlamb that we should rear it, and tend it, and lull it into security,\nfor the express purpose of killing it? Its offence is the misfortune\nof being something which society wants to eat, and which cannot defend\nitself. This is ample. Who shall limit the right of society except\nsociety itself? And what consideration for the individual is tolerable\nunless society be the gainer thereby?\" Erewhon, pp. 85, 86, and 100,\n101.\n\nThese sentiments considered, the reader will not be surprised to learn\nthat our author, after a preparatory college training in the main\ndoctrines of Self-interest--to wit, Evasion and Inconsistency--ends\nhappily and usefully for himself by the successful abduction of his\nhost's daughter--and by advertising a propaganda of certain European\nmanners and observances unknown in Erewhon, to be carried out by\nkidnapping its healthy inhabitants and training them properly on our\nsugar plantations. What genuine disciple of Utilitarianism can conceive\na brighter moral triumph than the union of private self-interest with\nthe interested aims of a great sugar-growing people? Matter-of-fact\nBaconians may argue that Utility substitutes a misplaced and one-sided\n\"why\" for the \"what\" required by Moralists,--but our traveller's\nanswer is plain--he argues on _data_;--given the premises--his is the\ninevitable conclusion. The defence of the former will be an interest\nto plenty of people--philosophic and unphilosophic. Leave the data to\nthem; or if necessary make a further appeal to the religious aims of\nsociety. In Erewhon the great feminine Divinity Ydgrun is supreme; she\nis sovereign amongst ourselves also;--only we twist her name and call\nthe Goddess \"Grundy.\"\n\n[64] Preface to the Philosophical Works. pp. 56, 57.\n\n[65] Works. Vol. i. p. 167.\n\n[66] De Augmentis. iii. 5. init.\n\n[67] Dr. Whewell rises into poetry--yet is not more poetical than\nthe philosopher on whom he thus comments. \"If he\" (Bacon) \"had had\noccasion to develop his simile, full of latent meaning as his similes\nso often are, he would probably have said, that to these final causes\nbarrenness was no reproach, seeing they ought to be, not the mothers\nbut the daughters of our natural sciences; and that they were barren,\nnot by imperfection of their nature, but in order that they might\nbe kept pure and undefiled, and so fit ministers in the temple of\nGod.\"--_Bridgewater Treatise._ B. III. Ch. vii. sub. fin.\n\n[68] It is a pleasure to confirm this paragraph by a definition of\nDesign taken from a writer who must be frequently quoted in these\npages, because his philosophy is of unusually wide scope, and embraces\nthe mixed sciences employed by a natural theologian:--\"We direct our\nthoughts to an action which we are about to perform; we _intend_ to\ndo it: we make it our _aim_: we place it before us, and act with\n_purpose_ (_propositum_): we _design_ it, or mark it out beforehand\n(_designo_).\"--_Whewell's Elements of Morality_, Book I., Chap. i., p.\n7.\n\n[69] The Soul, p. 35.\n\n[70] _Right and Wrong_, p. 31.\n\n[71] Dans plusieurs passages de ses \u00e9crits, quand il insiste avec le\nplus de force sur l'impossibilit\u00e9 o\u00f9 est la raison humaine d'atteindre\n\u00e0 la certitude, il semble tout pr\u00e8s d'accepter la r\u00e9v\u00e9lation divine\ncomme source de certaines grandes verit\u00e9s que nous ne saurions\nrepousser, quoiqu'il ne nous soit pas possible de les d\u00e9montrer. Un\nsoir qu'\u00e0 Paris il soupait chez le baron d'Holbach, on vint \u00e0 parler de\nla religion naturelle; Hume d\u00e9clara que pour sa part il n'avait jamais\nrencontr\u00e9 d'ath\u00e9e. On sait la r\u00e9ponse de son h\u00f4te. \"Parbleu, vous avez\nde la chance; pour la premi\u00e8re fois vous en rencontrez dix-sept du m\u00eame\ncoup.\" Hume ne demanda point \u00e0 \u00eatre compt\u00e9 comme le dix-huiti\u00e8me. Dix\nans auparavant, il se trouvait \u00e0 Londres lorsque lui arriva la nouvelle\nde la mort de sa m\u00e8re; son ami Boyle, fr\u00e8re du comte de Glasgow, t\u00e9moin\nde la douleur profonde o\u00f9 le jeta cette perte, exprima le regret qu'il\nne p\u00fbt trouver de consolation dans les croyances chr\u00e9tiennes sur la\ndestin\u00e9e des justes et sur la vie future. \"Ah! mon ami,\" dit Hume\nen sanglotant, \"je peux bien publier mes sp\u00e9culations pour occuper\nles savans et les m\u00e9taphysiciens; mais ne croyez pas que je sois si\nloin que vous le supposez de penser comme le reste des hommes.\" _Deux\nMondes_, 1856, Vol. VI., pp. 118, 19. The latter anecdote will be found\nin _Burton_ at rather greater length. Vol. I. 293, 4.\n\n[72] These Dialogues were posthumously published in obedience to their\nauthor's will. Hume had kept the MS. by him for twenty-seven years,\nand had corrected it from time to time, yet had delayed publication\nfrom deference to the judgment of his friends. He directed his literary\nexecutor, Adam Smith, to publish the Dialogues within two years of his\ndeath; but, in consequence of Smith's distaste for the task, this duty\ndevolved upon Hume's nephew. They were printed in 1779 translated into\nGerman in 1781, and commented on by Jacobi in 1787.\n\nLowndes states that these Dialogues were not republished with the\n\"Essays,\" but is mistaken in saying so. They appear at the end of\nVol. II. in the 8vo. Edition of 1788. As this is not an uncommon or\nexpensive book, I quote its paging. The quantity of matter extends only\nthrough 113 8vo. pages, and reference will not be difficult in any\nother Edition.\n\nIt seems true that the Dialogues were withdrawn from later reprints\nof the Essays. They appear to have been considered particularly\nobjectionable; but there is no doubt that they express Hume's most\ndeliberate and matured convictions, and thus become to fair inquirers\nparticularly valuable. It must, however, be added that Hume valued\nhimself on a conservatism of opinion. Comparing, when forty years old,\nhis recent Essays with his Treatise \"planned before I was twenty-one\nand composed before twenty-five,\" he says, \"The philosophical\nprinciples are the same in both; but I was carried away by the heat of\nyouth and invention to publish too precipitately.\" _Burton_, I. 337.\n\n[73] There can be no doubt that Cleanthes is meant for the\nrepresentative man, both from the tenor of the Dialogue itself and\nfrom a letter to Sir Gilbert Elliot, of Minto, given by _Burton_, I.\n331-6. The following extracts may be acceptable to the reader:--\"You\nwould perceive by the sample I have given you, that I make Cleanthes\nthe hero of the dialogue: whatever you can think of, to strengthen that\nside of the argument, will be most acceptable to me. Any propensity you\nimagine I have to the other side, crept in upon me against my will; and\n'tis not long ago that I burned an old manuscript book, wrote before\nI was twenty, which contained, page after page, the gradual progress\nof my thoughts on that head. It began with an anxious search after\narguments, to confirm the common opinion; doubts stole in, dissipated,\nreturned; were again dissipated, returned again; and it was a perpetual\nstruggle of a restless imagination against inclination, perhaps against\nreason.... I could wish Cleanthes' argument could be so analyzed, as\nto be rendered quite formal and regular. The propensity of the mind\ntowards it,--unless that propensity were as strong and universal\nas that to believe in our senses and experience,--will still, I am\nafraid, be esteemed a suspicious foundation. 'Tis here I wish for your\nassistance; we must endeavour to prove that this propensity is somewhat\ndifferent from our inclination to find our own figures in the clouds,\nour faces in the moon, our passions and sentiments even in inanimate\nmatter. Such an inclination may, and ought to be controlled, and can\nnever be a legitimate ground of assent.\n\n\"The instances I have chosen for Cleanthes are, I hope, tolerably\nhappy, and the confusion in which I represent the sceptic seems\nnatural, but--si quid novisti rectius, etc.... He (Cleanthes)\nallows, indeed, in part 2nd, that all our inference is founded on\nthe similitude of the works of nature to the usual effects of mind,\notherwise they must appear a mere chaos. The only difficulty is, why\nthe other assimilations do not weaken the argument; and indeed it would\nseem from experience and feeling, that they do not weaken it so much as\nwe might naturally expect.\"\n\nIt seems clear on the whole, that, so far as _Physico-Theology_ went,\nHume was not ill qualified for a Natural Theologian. All the more so\nperhaps, because, while seeing the difficulties which attach themselves\nto this kind of argument, he pronounced it to hold conclusively at last.\n\n[74] The following quotation is from the _Treatise_ \"composed before\ntwenty-five\":--\"Nor does this reasoning only prove, that morality\nconsists not in any relations, that are the objects of science; but\nif examined, will prove with equal certainty, that it consists not in\nany _matter of fact_, which can be discovered by the understanding.\nThis is the _second_ part of our argument; and if it can be made\nevident, we may conclude, that morality is not an object of reason.\nBut can there be any difficulty in proving, that vice and virtue are\nnot matters of fact, whose existence we can infer by reason?... So\nthat when you pronounce any action or character to be vicious, you\nmean nothing, but that from the constitution of your nature you have a\nfeeling or sentiment of blame from the contemplation of it. Vice and\nvirtue, therefore, may be compared to sounds, colours, heat and cold,\nwhich, according to modern philosophy, are not qualities in objects,\nbut perceptions in the mind: and this discovery in morals, like that\nother in physics, is to be regarded as a considerable advancement of\nthe speculative sciences; though, like that too, it has little or no\ninfluence on practice.\" _Treatise_, Book III., part 1, Vol. II., 170, 1.\n\nThis 3rd Book of the _Treatise_ was not printed till Hume was in his\n30th year; and he felt some hesitation respecting the latter paragraph.\n\"Is not this,\" he asks Hutcheson, \"laid a little too strong? I desire\nyour opinion of it, though I cannot entirely promise to conform myself\nto it. I wish from my heart I could avoid concluding, that since\nmorality, according to your opinion, as well as mine, is determined\nmerely by sentiment, it regards only human nature and human life.... If\nmorality were determined by reason, that is the same to all rational\nbeings; but nothing but experience can assure us that the sentiments\nare the same. What experience have we with regard to superior beings?\nHow can we ascribe to them any sentiments at all? They have implanted\nthose sentiments in us for the conduct of life like our bodily\nsensations, which they possess not themselves.\" (_Burton_, I. 119.) The\nparagraph was, however, published; and helped by consequence to foster\nin its author's mind that Utilitarian theory of morals respecting\nwhich many late writers have been only Hume's copyists. In this very\n_Treatise_ he did in fact apply that theory to the most important of\nSocial questions (see same Bk., Pt. II. Sec. 12, more especially p.\n299), and was thus led into lax conclusions respecting those bonds\nbetween Man and Woman which underlie the other foundations of Society.\nHume shares this blame with his disciples; for leading Utilitarians are\napt to shew by their own domestic relations that the principle, _when\napplied_, results in maxims lower than our present English tone of\nthought upon this subject.\n\nBut let us suppose that Hume had lived to analyze Rousseau's\nConfessions. Would he not have urged with the force of truth, that\nto animalize a Man is to destroy his Manhood, to weaken his judgment\nand impair his Moral sense? Would he not have argued from Rousseau\nthe depraved boy, to Rousseau the shopman and footman, and pointed\nout that in such cases Truth, Honesty, and Gratitude become mere\nnames and shadows?--No one could have replied that Hume was wrong in\nfact and experience, but some might have said that _all_ which lowers\nthe supremacy of the Moral sense lowers the Manhood of Man. As Hume\nadmitted the fact of a Moral sense, he might possibly have felt the\ncogency of this argument.\n\n[75] No one who reads Hume's account of his own motives on various\noccasions will think it untrue to say that his judgment was largely\ninfluenced by his vanity. Compare for example his well-known letter to\nDr. Blair of December 20th, 1765, with another to the same, dated 1st\nJuly, 1766;--the first a panegyric on the \"celebrated Rousseau,\" the\nsecond a fierce invective against that \"blackest and most atrocious\nvillain.\" Who can help seeing that the motives of the eulogy are\nderived from a series of self-gratulations;--while the cause of the\ninvective is a sharp wound given to the philosopher's self-love?\n\n[76] In the _Inquiry concerning Human Understanding_, Section XI.,\nhe puts this case: \"As the universe shows wisdom and goodness, we\ninfer wisdom and goodness. As it shows a particular degree of these\nperfections, we infer a particular degree of them, precisely adapted\nto the effect which we examine. But farther attributes or farther\ndegrees of the same attributes, we can never be authorized to infer or\nsuppose, by any rules of just reasoning.\" The argument of this section\nupon which Hume's limitations are based, is put into the mouth of a\nrepresentative Epicurus; it is acute even to extreme subtlety, but it\nis also suicidal. The restraints applied to what he explains as the\nargument from effects to cause, and conversely down again from cause\nto other effects, cannot be maintained without dealing a death blow\nat the Inductive Philosophy. How little do we know of the material\nUniverse, yet we apply the principle of gravitation to the Whole, seen\nand unseen. By its aid we find masses of radiant matter previously\nunknown, and predict events long before they are phenomenally apparent.\nThe vast power of _extending_ knowledge which the Inductive principle\nasserts, will occur for our investigation in Chapter IV. Another\nEpicurean position contained in this same Section XI. has been quoted\nin a previous note, together with Hume's own reply to it; see pp. 101,\n2 _ante_.\n\nA criticism of Hume's Tenth and Eleventh sections occupies a long note\nappended by Lord Brougham to his \"Discourse on Natural Theology\"--a\nvolume I suppose accessible to almost all students of the science.\n\n[77] The word Creation must here be construed strictly, so as to\nsignify a true Beginning;--the idea that is of a law-governed _materies\nmundi_, a substantial force, and movement evoked into primary Existence.\n\nThe prospect of final change yet to be, is thus similarly connected by\na living philosopher (Helmholtz) with the history of our world's Past:--\n\n\"We estimate the duration of human History at 6,000 years; but\nimmeasurable as this time may appear to us, what is it in comparison\nwith the time during which the earth carried successive series of\nrank plants and mighty animals, and no men; during which in our\nneighbourhood the amber-tree bloomed, and dropped its costly gum on\nthe earth and in the sea; when in Siberia, Europe, and North America\ngroves of tropical palms flourished; where gigantic lizards, and after\nthem elephants, whose mighty remains we still find buried in the\nearth, found a home? Different geologists, proceeding from different\npremises, have sought to estimate the duration of the above-named\ncreative period, and vary from a million to nine million years.----The\ntime during which the earth generated organic beings is again small\nwhen compared with the ages during which the world was a ball of fused\nrocks. For the duration of its cooling from 2,000\u00b0 to 200\u00b0 Centigrade\nthe experiments of Bishop upon basalt show that about 350 millions of\nyears would be necessary.----And with regard to the time during which\nthe first nebulous mass condensed into our planetary system, our most\ndaring conjectures must cease. The history of man, therefore, is but\na short ripple in the ocean of time.----For a much longer series of\nyears than that during which he has already occupied this world, the\nexistence of the present state of inorganic nature favourable to the\nduration of man seems to be secured, so that for ourselves and for\nlong generations after us we have nothing to fear. But the same forces\nof air and water, and of the volcanic interior, which produced former\ngeological revolutions, and buried one series of living forms after\nanother, act still upon the earth's crust. They more probably will\nbring about the last day of the human race than those distant cosmical\nalterations of which we have spoken, forcing us perhaps to make way for\nnew and more complete living forms, as the lizards and the mammoth have\ngiven place to us and our fellow-creatures which now exist.\n\n\"Thus the thread which was spun in darkness by those who sought a\nperpetual motion has conducted us to a universal law of nature, which\nradiates light into the distant nights of the beginning and of the\nend of the history of the universe. To our own race it permits a long\nbut not an endless existence; it threatens it with a day of judgment,\nthe dawn of which is still happily obscured. As each of us singly\nmust endure the thought of his death, the race must endure the same.\nBut above the forms of life gone by, the human race has higher moral\nproblems before it, the bearer of which it is, and in the completion\nof which it fulfils its destiny.\" Helmholtz, _Popular Lectures on\nScientific Subjects_, p. 191, seq.\n\nThe distinguished German had just before observed, \"Even though the\nforce store of our planetary system is so immensely great ... still\nthe inexorable laws of mechanics indicate that this store of force,\nwhich can only suffer loss and not gain, must be finally exhausted.\"\nOn the subject of such vast cosmical changes, the reader may like to\nperuse the remarks of _Littr\u00e9_ in his most recent volume--\"Les choses,\nou, pour mieux dire, nos choses sont d'hier, d\u00fbt cet hier comporter de\nprodigieuses dur\u00e9es.\n\n\"Cette nouveaut\u00e9 est un t\u00e9moignage que notre monde, notre univers,\nauront une fin. Ce qui a commenc\u00e9 doit finir, la raison le dit, et\ntoutes nos connaissances physiques le confirment. Le soleil et les\n\u00e9toiles se refroidissent incessamment, versant dans les espaces une\nchaleur qui ne leur revient jamais. Quelque chauds qu'ils soient,\nils le sont chaque jour un peu moins, le calorique s'y \u00e9puisera;\nils s'\u00e9teindront, comme d\u00e9j\u00e0 leurs plan\u00e8tes se sont \u00e9teintes. Que\ndeviendront ces masses anim\u00e9es d'un mouvement rapide? Nul ne peut le\ndire. Mais il suffirait d'un choc entre elles pour y transformer un\nprodigieux mouvement en une prodigieuse incandescence, et y renouveler\nun cycle de chaleur et d'expansion.\n\n\"Ce serait se perdre en vaines et gratuites hypoth\u00e8ses, que de sp\u00e9culer\nsur ce que deviendra notre univers quand il aura pris fin, comme de\nsp\u00e9culer sur ce qu'il fut avant qu'il e\u00fbt pris commencement.\" Littr\u00e9,\n_La Science_, pp. 560, 1.\n\nThere are thinkers who believe that these cycles, immeasurable to Man,\ntook their governing laws from a supreme Designer. They will be aided\nby Helmholtz and Littr\u00e9 in shaping their ideas of His far-reaching\nwisdom and power. There are also thinkers who find within their own\ninward Being a consciousness of kinship with the Source of Causation,\nso infinitely beyond cycles apparently infinite. How great then the\nvalue of human Spirits bearing His likeness, and with it a promise\nof surviving the period when our world's cycles shall vanish away in\nSpace--to be replaced by other hereditary cycles, or to be remembered\nno more for ever!\n\n[78] This article has been lately reprinted in a volume of \"Critiques\nand Addresses,\" and Leibniz's censure of Newton will be found on p.\n323. It may be convenient for some readers to be informed that the\nCorrespondence between Clarke and Leibniz to which I have referred will\nbe found at the end of Erdmann's Opera Leibnitii (Berlin, 1840), a\nportable and useful Edition. The sentences quoted by me are on page 747.\n\n[79] J. M\u00fcller.\n\n[80] Kant.\n\n[81] Philosophy of Discovery, Chap. XXX. 23, pp. 369-70.\n\n[82] It is necessary to observe the Professor's limitations.\n\n[83] They have been noted before. In this place it is necessary to\nexamine the following instances.\n\n[84] Critiques, p. 306.\n\n[85] Lay Sermons, p. 373.\n\n[86] Critiques, p. 281.\n\n[87] Ibid. 349.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nCONDITIONS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE.\n\n\n\"The words which the great German poet put into the mouth of\nMephistopheles when describing himself to Faust, afford perhaps\nthe most concise and forcible statement of what we may call the\nanti-scientific spirit:--\n\n    'Ich bin der Geist der stets verneint,\n    Dem alles, was entsteht, zuwider ist.'\n\nThe true spirit of science is certainly affirmative, not negative; for,\nas I mentioned just now, its history teaches us that the development\nof our knowledge usually takes place through two or more simultaneous\nideas of the same phenomenon, quite different from one another, both of\nwhich ultimately prove to be parts of some more general truth; so that\na confident belief in one of those ideas does not involve or justify\na denial of the others.\"--_Address of the President of the British\nAssociation_, 1873-4. p. 13.\n\n\"Philosophy is but wise and disciplined thought upon the subjects\non which all men think. The minds of men, left to their own natural\nworking, will never cease to think on these things; and if Philosophy\nshould cease to attempt to think wisely on them, she abandons her\nposition as a guide. She has been to blame for the carelessness of her\nprocedure, for the overweeningness of her pretensions. But the remedy\nis soberness, not scepticism. Is it, after all, an evil, that in some\ndirections we fail to attain certainty by mere thinking?... As in\nnature, the picture you see is not broad light and dark, but a thousand\ntender tones and hues melting into each other, and vibrating together\nbetween the light and dark: so is the mind of man.\" Archbishop of\nYork--on _The limits of Philosophical Inquiry_, pp. 25-26.\n\n\"To the _knowledge_ of the most contemptible _effect_ in nature, 'tis\nnecessary to know the whole _Syntax_ of Causes, and their particular\n_circumstances_, and _modes_ of action. Nay, we _know nothing_, till we\n_know ourselves_, which are the summary of all the world without us,\nand the _Index_ of the Creation.\" Glanvill, _Vanity of Dogmatizing_,\nChap. xxii. Ed. 1. p. 217.\n\n    \"A branching channel, with a mazy flood?\n    The purple stream that through my vessels glides,\n    Dull and unconscious flows, like common tides:\n    The pipes through which the circling juices stray,\n    Are not that thinking I, no more than they:\n    This frame compacted with transcendent skill,\n    Of moving joints obedient to my will,\n    Nurs'd from the fruitful glebe, like yonder tree,\n    Waxes and wastes; I call it mine, not me.\"\n\n    _Dr. Arbuthnot._\n\n\"'To the eye of vulgar Logic,' says he, 'what is man? An omnivorous\nBiped that wears Clothes. To the eye of Pure Reason what is he? A\nsoul, a Spirit, and divine Apparition. Round his mysterious Me, there\nlies, under all those wool-rags, a Garment of Flesh (or of Senses),\ncontextured in the Loom of Heaven; whereby he is revealed to his like,\nand dwells with them in UNION and DIVISION; and sees and fashions\nfor himself a Universe, with azure Starry Spaces, and long Thousands\nof Years. Deep-hidden is he under that strange Garment; amid Sounds\nand Colours and Forms, as it were, swathed in, and inextricably\nover-shrouded: yet it is skywoven, and worthy of a God. Stands he not\nthereby in the centre of Immensities, in the conflux of Eternities? He\nfeels; power has been given him to Know, to Believe; nay does not the\nspirit of Love, free in its celestial primeval brightness, even here,\nthough but for moments, look through? Well said Saint Chrysostom, with\nhis lips of gold, \"the true SHEKINAH is Man:\" where else is\nthe GOD'S-PRESENCE manifested not to our eyes only, but to\nour hearts, as in our fellow man?'\"--_Sartor Resartus_, Chap. x. Pure\nReason.\n\n\nSYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER III.\n\n This Chapter may be characterized as a parallel between the\n difficulties alleged to be fatal against Theism, and the difficulties\n attaching to very various departments of human knowledge, embracing\n its most necessary and its most certainly accepted kinds. From this\n parallel the conclusion becomes evident, that whoever accepts one\n set of truths cannot be debarred by these or similar difficulties\n from accepting the higher truth likewise. That such an acceptance\n is natural and valid appears further evident from the fact that a\n knowledge of God belongs to the class of Practical beliefs, and is\n enforced by the same reasonable necessity. This topic forms the\n transition to Chapter IV. on \"Our Reasonable Beliefs.\"\n\n The same inferences are also stated in a _destructive_ form, _e.g._,\n Should a thinker choose to deny the possibility of Theism, he ought\n (if consistent) to deny all those truths which stand or fall by a\n parallel set of reasonings. But by doing this he lands himself in\n a state of doubt, so extreme and thorough, that the whole Universe\n becomes a rayless blank.\n\n A corollary is added on Materialism.\n\n _Analysis_--Man the interpreter of Nature. Nature _gives_ by answering\n our interrogations; these must depend on our powers of assimilating\n knowledge. Some questions inevitable, _e.g._, What are the first\n grounds of Truth?\n\n Has Man any faculty of apprehending the Infinite? Can we know our own\n Personality or that of others?--or any Thing in itself? Inference\n against Scepticism based on human ignorance.\n\n Fallacy of the Unthinkable or Inconceivable. Ideas of Self and\n not-Self, inexplicable, yet undoubted. From things as they are, let us\n turn to things as they appear. How do we perceive, hear, see?\n\n Perception as an instrument of Intelligence, inscrutable. We\n acknowledge the insoluble mystery but accept the fact.\n\n Marvels of eyesight, and their problems. How much and what do we see?\n Comparison with Sound;--Form, Colour, Tone. Evidence on which we\n receive sense impressions. Comparison between healthy and diseased\n sensations,--between our organs of sense and those of animals. We soon\n arrive at a twilight territory of knowledge and can explain no more.\n\n Imperfections in our powers of Verification. How great is the\n subjective Element in our perceptions? Idealism,--most difficult\n to answer when most extreme. Philosophic denial of all proof of\n external things as distinguished from Mind (_e.g._, by Mill).\n Fact-knowledge, and absurdities involved in the ordinary method\n of defining and alleging Facts. Polar tendencies of Phenomenalism\n which take the shapes of Idealism and Positivism, resulting in\n Nihilism or Indifferentism. The end of these things! Mr. Herbert\n Spencer on Theology, compared with Mr. Huxley, and criticized by Mr.\n J. Martineau, who denies that the Unknowable can be any object of\n religious feeling,--a protest strongly maintained by Mr. J. S. Mill.\n\n The difficulties attending every kind of knowledge paralleled with\n the difficulties alleged against Theism. If the Inexplicable be also\n the Unknowable, there is an end to all knowledge. We cannot predicate\n veracity of our human Mind, we cannot even know that we know anything.\n Mr. J. S. Mill accepts Mind as an inexplicable Fact underlying all\n other Facts and Beliefs. We _must_ accept _ultimate_ Truths.\n\n Transition to Chapter IV. on the affirmative evidence for our\n Reasonable Beliefs.\n\n Corollary on Materialism. Far more difficult than its antithesis.\n Conclusion to be drawn from these difficulties.\n\n\n _Additional Notes and Illustrations._\n\n A.--Account of some theories respecting our Personal Identity.\n\n B.--Helmholtz, Popular Lectures on Recent Progress of the Theory of\n Vision.\n\n C.--Helmholtz on Specialties of Sensibility.\n\n D.--Popular account of Pure Idealism with critical remarks.\n\n E.--On the Relations of Fact and Theory.\n\n F.--On the \"Unknowable.\"\n\n G.--Mr. J. S. Mill as an Independent Moralist.\n\n\n _Additions to Corollary._\n\n Note H.--Archebiosis, or Spontaneous Generation. I.--On Materialism.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nCONDITIONS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE.\n\n\nIs the great Book of Nature--the world we live in--a closed or open\nbook to Man? On this question all have thought often,--and many have\nwritten much,--students--men of science--religious teachers--poets, and\nphilosophers.\n\nWe ask this question of ourselves variously circumstanced, and under\nvarious impulses. We ask it if, like \u00c6schylus' watchman, we contemplate\n\n      \"The congress of the nightly stars\n    Bright potentates, set proudly in the sky.\"\n\nOr when we sail upon a sea made solemn by its vastness, dying in far\ndistance, with no boundary except itself, as each swelling wave rises\nagainst the sky. We ask it, on some stately mountain top looking down\nover light and shadow,--over the rest and the motion of the landscape.\nMore earnestly still, perhaps, while from the depth of a twilight\nvalley we admire the sunset lingering upon inapproachable alpine\nsnows;--rosy heights unveiling their loveliness, yet soon to be hidden\ntill the Light of this lower world shall shine afresh amongst their\nclefts and pinnacles.\n\nAnd who is not in earnest, as sunset and sunrise remind him how\nthe majestic clock of Time moves on? Yonder glorious luminary has\nwarmed with form and life countless organisms, scattered over\nmountain summits, in ocean depths, through wild savannahs and\nforests;--organisms throughout regions of earth, water, air, so remote\nand inaccessible that their wonderful excellence of beauty has never\nbeen beheld by Man's perishable eye. Knowing, as we cannot but know,\nhow soon our own eyelids must close beneath the sun, we yearn within\nour soul, longing for a truer insight into the great Universe above\nand beyond us; and for a firmer feeling that we ourselves are an\nimperishable part of it. Somewhere in this Universe, must surely be\ncontained things brighter and better than those we now possess. Else,\nwhy is it clothed so lavishly with half-revealed charms, adapted to\ntouch our most delicate sympathies, to win us from our worse selves,\nand allure us on like willing captives to its loveliness? Awakened in\nour senses, awakened in our souls, we desire to know, to feel, and to\nattain;--these three impulses become our fixed and enduring aspirations.\n\nBut, how? We all remember that Undine sought a soul and found a\nsorrow;--a sorrow the more intolerable, because through its burden she\nfirst realized her hard-earned dower of coveted immortality. Yet, as\nshe truly says, every creature cannot but strive after that which is\nnaturally higher than itself.\n\n_One_ secret of progress we soon discover. What Nature can give us\ndepends on what she can tell us. And here is a prevailing motive for\nthe endeavour to unclose fair Nature's book.\n\n_Another_ step in thought is early taken in our day, though the\ncivilized world was slow in reaching it. We soon perceive that Nature's\nanswers must catch their tone and compass from our interrogations. In\nnumerous sciences, this axiom carries the whole theory and practice of\nexperiment;--that grand distinction between Bacon's inductive process,\nand the induction of the ancient world. In other walks of inquiry,\nintellectual and moral, the same truth has grown up and blossomed with\na ruling idea of the crucial or prerogative question: slow in being\nframed, and difficult often in the asking, but, when asked, certain to\nelicit a reply.\n\nA _third_ postulate is also quickly apparent. Our inquiries must be\nsubject, for utility's sake, to our power of assimilating knowledge.\nAnd thus our faculty for asking questions is governed by our faculties\nfor apprehending answers.\n\nThe _last_ and paramount requirement is _forced_ upon us. Beyond and\nover all, comes the pressure of our own need and private anxiety.\nThere are many truths which we discern afar off, like features of a\nsmiling land of promise; and, knowing that they must become one day the\nheritage of mankind, we tend towards them without haste, yet without\nforgetfulness, and in this temper of mind wait contentedly. But, there\nare some truths for which we cannot afford to wait. They concern our\ndestinies too closely; they are too near our hearts; too influential on\nour lives and happiness.\n\nThe old question asked in the youth of human philosophy, is the one we\nall begin by asking in our first confidence and eagerness of pursuit.\nAsk it in what words we may, it always comes to much the same thing;\nand if we could answer it, we should answer all questions in one. For,\nthough we clothe our query with various shapes, and seldom put it in\nthe form following, its true meaning is, \"what are the realities of the\nUniverse, and what the essential ground of all we see and think?\"\n\nIt is always worth a thinker's while to look this human problem\nmore than once in the face. Suppose a faculty[88] for such insight\ngranted, it must be different in kind, rather than degree, from our\nlogic of ordinary life. It cannot proceed discursively, abstracting,\ngeneralizing, connecting, deducing. It must know--or look at its object\ndirectly, just as genius knows, images and conveys to other minds, not\nthrough a train of explanatory definition, but by kindling within them\na spark of its own light. If there be such a faculty, it will work, (as\nAristotle[89] says of the Supreme Intellect,) by what seems to us most\nlike an act of touch; a figure half-shadowed out when we say we grasp\nor apprehend a truth; and much as St. Paul speaks, in bidding men to\nseek and feel after and find the Lord.\n\nWe are not all conscious of such a faculty. But if dim to some, is it\ncertainly dim to all? Did Plato see farther than Herschel could when he\nburst the barriers of the sky? Did Schelling at any time behold what\nHamilton pronounced invisible?[90]\n\nOr again, if not actually ours now,--if those who have asserted it have\nspoken in error,--is there a hope that in the Future of Man individual\nor collective, he will ever grow up to it? The thought is not unknown\nto physicists as well as moralists. In both camps hopeful minds have\nconceived the possibility. And, _then_ Mankind will look the secret of\nthe Universe face to face.\n\nMeanwhile, thinking men have laid siege to the absolute Truth by aid\nof such powers as they commonly call into action. For centuries past,\nthe nature of things in themselves,--and along with (or perhaps above)\nall other natures, the \"_Self_\" within every man has been among the\nmost fascinating of objects pursued by human thought. Yet, how far\ndo we really know the life throbbing in every pulse? Can we tell the\nsecret of our own individuality? We feel it every day;--it endues\nus with a separate existence, distinctly several, and apart from\nothers, and so intensely vivid to ourselves, that we seem in our own\neyes like small centres of the Universe, with men and women,--nay,\nworlds and stars,--revolving round us.[91] Yet, strange to say, our\nbodies are at all times undergoing change, sufficient in a few years\nto eliminate their present frame, and remould a future compound of\ngradually assimilated elements. And it seems stranger still, that\nwhile the law of Change rules supreme in these fabrics,--(built to be\ncontinually dissolved and continually built again),--each rude mark and\nscar maintains its place; no old wound forgets to ache; no cicatrice\neven, nor superficial blemish, dies quite away. We are always changing,\nalways being transformed; yet, to each of our bodies continues its one\nindividual configuration; within each of our minds its self-collection,\nits memories, its expectations, and its individual consciousness.[t]\n\nWeighing these inconsistencies together, shall we say that, in any\nproper sense, we _know_ our own selves? And, if not, can we expect\ntruly to know the _self_ of anything? May we not travel further, and\ninquire whether we can conceive a _self-ness_ of any kind,--whether\nthe very idea is not to us absolutely inconceivable? And, when this\nquestion is answered as it must be answered, need we feel surprised if\nwe fall short of conceiving the self-subsistent God? At what value,\ntherefore, shall we rate sceptical arguments drawn from our failure;\nand resting on the fallacious consequence, that the inconceivable (or\nunthinkable as some prefer to call it) is likewise the impossible?[u]\n\nThat a fallacy really lurks beneath these words,--that the contrary is\ntrue, we know as a matter of fact.[92] We entertain really no doubt\nwhatever of our own continued sameness, and individual existence. We\nare quite sure that our _self-ness_ has, gone on throughout the years\nof our natural life. How it first became clear to our inward sense,\nis a point confessedly disputable. Some suppose that it existed as\na principle of consciousness,--a kind of primordial instinct in our\nminds. Others--that our internal impressions, one and all, formed a\npanoramic scene; impressions from without and impressions from within\nevenly painted on the retina of the mental eye. Time and comparison\nwere needful to give us the true distinction. Those who think thus\nusually take another step; and add that _resistance_ to our _self-ness_\nfirst informs us of its being. There is resistance to a muscular\nsense, somewhat akin to touch, but specialized to feel the kind of\nimpact given by things impenetrable. There is also a resistance which\nthwarts our desires, endeavours, and determinations. Be this as it\nmay, we never doubt our own identity of being; we never doubt the\n_other-ness_ and _outer-ness_ of beings like ourselves, and of objects\nbeyond number. Yet, that which makes ourselves and them, what we and\nthey are,--_our_ self-ness and _their_ self-ness--raises a question\nwe cannot answer; here is, we feel, a something which overpasses our\nmeans of investigation. Men, however, do not stay to discuss such\nquestions, or to test the origin and limits of intellectual conceptions\nbefore accepting the fact. They do not even ask whether Philosophical\nvictory sits on the banner of Idealism, pure or constructive; Realism\nmaterialistic or natural;--or whether it crowns any other imaginable\nvariety of cosmological theorem. We are perfectly sure of our facts;\nand no array of possible difficulties whatsoever can prevail to shake\nour assurance.\n\nLet us leave for the present, in its native shadows, the central point\nof our own self; the original centre of our earliest apparent universe.\nYet, if we cannot _know_ this first growing-point of our individual\nlife, it may be useful to inquire what can we know _about_ it? can we\nlearn, for example, how that inner vitality, once begun, is maintained\nand fed?--By a process of receiving into itself, (we are told), the\naliment which flows through our senses. We are also told, (as appeared\nin the last chapter), how very requisite is a knowledge of _natural_\nprocesses. Let us, then, look at this process of sense-alimentation,\nnarrowing the problem as much as possible. We have already cut off\n_one_ end of it--the germ-point of the _self_-stimulated; and will\nnow cut off _another_ piece--the assimilation of mental ideas when\nelaborated. We simply ask how does this food from without, get _into_\nus? The widest avenue of entrance is proverbially our sense of\neyesight. Its information, (as people in general agree, from Horace\ndown to Mr. Mill), being gathered through many definite impressions,\nand received from all distances, is at once the most significant, and\nthe most commanding. The first step is clear. We see by impinging rays\nof light,--movements in a luminiferous ether, making images on the\nsensitive network of the eye; a circumstance ascertained by the same\nsense of sight which receives the image. From this delicate surface,\nbegins a second series of movements;--they take place this time in an\norganized nerve-material, and are carried, like telegraph-currents, to\nthe Sensory. Arrived there, we may next suppose that they excite some\nnew motions, or corpuscular changes. Do we know--_can_ we know any\nmore? Is the grammar or dictionary written which translates them into\nthe language of the mind; or teaches us how we have, since our infancy,\nworked a perpetual miracle of speech respecting each of them? The eye,\nas an optical instrument,[v] is a marvel of science displayed; the eye\nas an instrument of intelligence, especially of human intelligence, is\na marvel of inscrutable mystery.\n\nThe mysteries of every-day life are the last things dreamed of in\nevery-day philosophy. When we wake up to their existence, it is\nastonishing to find how continually, without being able to explain\nthings, we can feel, and know them;--know them that is in the sense of\nacting intelligently (without theorizing) upon them.\n\nThe example we have taken, teaches us several good and important\nlessons. There is in it much we can understand; much that we cannot\nunderstand; and a twilight territory between the intelligible and the\nnon-intelligible. All three are, of course, mixed together when we\nspeak of sight,--in itself, a matter of every-day experience. So far\nas the mechanical construction of an optical chamber goes, everything\nseems obvious. We can, likewise, perceive how well contrived is the\napparatus for washing and wiping the outside transparent surface.\nAlso, the value of its arched hedge against irritants dropping upon\nthe eyeball from above; and of the arrangements for altering both\naxis and focus instantaneously. But what does this instrument enable\nus to see? _Not_ the rays of light themselves,--only objects which\nthey illuminate. The space traversed by rays from all suns and\nall stars, remains itself unseen. The ether which fills space is\ninvisible,--yet its motions make the light of the world.[93] Then,\ntoo, the nervous screen on which these ray movements are received, is\nnot sensitive to all transmitted undulations. Red excites the optic\nnerve by striking it with four hundred and seventy-four _millions of\nmillions_ of wave-impacts in a single second. Violet strikes it in the\nsame time with six hundred and ninety-nine _millions of millions_ of\nimpulses.[94] These two colours are the extremes of the light octave.\nIn an octave of sound, the highest note vibrates twice as quickly as\nthe lowest. So too, the shortest wave of violet is half the length of\nthe longest red wave, and its motion is twice as rapid. But the curious\npoint is that the human ear receives eleven octaves in the scale of\nsound;[95]--the human eye has a range over only one octave in the scale\nof light.\n\nOur remarks have carried us over the borders of the twilight\nterritory,--a circumstance we may ascertain by putting into words what\nwe think we know, and our reasons for thinking that we know it. If the\neye be in focus, (but not otherwise), a line of light--that is to say\nmoving imponderable matter of extreme tenuity--so passes through its\ntransparent liquids as to strike a sensitive spot, and there produce\nwhat is called an image. We apprehend in our minds this image-producing\nfunction as a relation between light and the effect realized. A\nrelation definite and exact,--in scientific language a \"constant\";\nwhich we can formulate into optical laws, and thus express with useful\nnicety. Taking advantage of the laws thus obtained, and employing\nthat light-power which everywhere blesses our world, we reproduce the\n_like_, image upon a screen. Its likeness we gather from comparison, by\nlooking into an eye from without. Both images, thus seen by us, are in\npoint of fact similar sensations.\n\nA philosophic reader may at once perceive what the Idealist will infer\nrespecting this act of comparison. Neither image--on retina or on\nscreen--exists apart from the eye. So far as we know, if there were no\neyes there would be no images; and some writers (_e.g._, Schleiden)\nhave positively affirmed that without eyes all would be, not only to\nus, but _in itself_, darkness;--the world absolutely void of Light.\nBut the truth may be summed in a sentence. Light is not for the eye in\nthe same sense that the eye is for light. Light is for other things\nbesides. It exerts its activity on life, animal and vegetable;--on\ninorganic substances;--and in other ways likewise.--Going no further\nthan our screen, we can so manage matters as to engrave and otherwise\nfix the image thrown upon it;--in other words our moving line of\nimponderable matter will produce further effects, chemical and\nmechanical, visible and palpable.\n\nProceeding to a cross-examination of the knowledge with which we\nhave credited ourselves, our next business is to try whether we can\nverify the objectivity of our optical image. Now it impresses sight\nin two respects,--as superficial form--and as colour. The family of\nforms is, we are aware widely connected. Sound evokes them. Draw a\nviolin bow across a string stretched over finely silted sand, and the\ndifferent notes will be correlated by a diversity of shapes,[96]\ninto which the sand will arrange itself. Therefore, we ought to find\nmeans of verifying Form without much difficulty. Indeed we do so\nevery day satisfactorily; our hands are perpetually demonstrating the\ngeneral accuracy of our eyes, and even those delicate instruments our\nfinger-ends, do not always add much to the information sight has given\nus.\n\nBut about colour? Distinct colour-waves have (as we said before)\ndistinct velocities, and are therefore objectively distinguished even\nin the inorganic universe. They also act differently upon the growth\nof animals and plants,--and other distinctions might be added. The\n_sensation_ is, however, our point,--the special thing called colour\nboth by careful speakers and in child parlance,--what do we really know\nabout this? Little indeed except as an impression received by sight.\nThe man born in complete blindness taking a piece of red cloth to\nexamine, described the fabric minutely; but, when asked if he could say\nanything about its redness, likened that \"hue angry and brave\" to the\nsound of a trumpet. A simile most conclusive,--suggested probably by\nhis having often heard of certain \"scarlet-coated gentry\";--and proving\nbeyond doubt that colour is non-existent in the sensory of a person\naffected from birth by a deep-seated lesion. To one less thoroughly\nblind, spectra are possible, and red light may be produced under\npressure. It thus appears, that colour must be perceived by a nervous\n_substratum_, called the rod and cone layer; and hence we explain\nour power of distinctly seeing the blood-vessels of the retina lying\nimmediately before that structure.[97]\n\nThese curiosities, of vision shew that our powers of verifying shape\nare superior to our powers of verifying colour;[98] add, too, that\nthe latter sensation, (as an idealist might maintain,) is known to be\nsometimes unreal, since it occurs without a coloured object. We can\nproduce it, for instance, by gazing at the sun--a phenomenon mentioned\nby Aristotle. But then, this ideal sense-affection ranges with a\nvariety of others, which taken together constitute a very much wider\nlaw. Not to mention many superinduced mental states, we see light under\nthe influence of a touch or blow,--of electricity,--of chemicals, such\nas narcotic medicines, which attack the nervous system. We hear sound\nunder like appliances stimulating the auditory nerve. And the whole of\nthese affections are to be explained by another Aristotelian doctrine,\nextended and pushed to its consequences. Special senses have their own\nproper faculties, and when called into action each exerts its power\nwithin its special province. Had Aristotle dissected out nerve-fibres,\nhe might have discovered the larger empire of specialty now known to\nour anatomists.[99]\n\nIdealism easily widens its doubt, to correspond with the dimensions of\nthe wider nervous law. Does not an aptitude for special impressions,\nso stringently determined as to translate the antecedent \"blow\" into\nthe consequent, \"light\" or \"sound,\" disqualify our senses for giving\nevidence respecting supposed facts of the outer world? As for the\n\"distinctive impressibility of the eye,\" as Mr. Bain[100] describes\ncolour, it need not be held real except for our own sensorium,[w] and\nif colour be a questionable reality, other alleged realities become\nquestionable too. The world we live in, may be a totally different\nworld from what we are taught, generation after generation, to believe\nit. Who can lay down the limits of what our minds create for themselves\noutside us?[101] The mental disease of the madman causes his eye to\nsee that which is not. Guilt and sickness fill bedchambers with unreal\nspectres. Putting disease aside, and taking the case of healthy eye\nand healthy mind, it is confessedly difficult to define the exact\nprovince of each. A boy couched by Cheselden[102] saw all things in\none plane; there was no perspective, and objects in the room seemed to\ntouch his eyeballs. The mind creates perspective, how much then may it\nnot create? The mind also refuses to surrender its own associations\nat the bidding of optical laws. Mr, Wheatstone's ingenious instrument\ncalled the Pseudoscope, brings into play laws which reverse the\nimpressions of solidity and hollowness. A person looking through it\nsteadily at the face of a statue sees a hollow mask. The convexity of\nfeature is gone, and a concave set of features (representing the bust\nreversed) is perceived in its stead. But, let the same person gaze\nthrough his pseudoscope ever so long at the face of a human being,\nand he will look for a like reversal in vain. The flesh and blood\nfeatures refuse to change;--in other words, the mind refuses to yield\nits _long-accustomed_ impression.[103] If these things and others\nlike them are fairly considered, what becomes of our readings in the\nunclosed book of Nature? The nature we see is our own thought reflected\nback again. Nature's answers take not only tone and compass, but\nmeaning and utterance from our own interrogations. We think that we are\nassimilating knowledge, when we are actually engaged in manufacturing\naliments to suit our own intellectual digestions. The most inward\nof all things,--our essential _self_,--at once retired into shadow\nwhen we pursued it; and now, in trying to show how _self_ is fed by\nsubstance from without, we have learned to suspect that all its food is\nunsubstantial.[x]\n\nWe may henceforth consider ourselves face to face with Sphinx; and\nit is well to take the true measure of her lineaments. If the above\nreasoning be sound, to know, is to make a mirror and reflect ourselves\nback from it. To verify, is to put ourselves in new postures before\nour infallible mirror. Each fresh item of induction, is a freshly\nreflected phantom. At all events, the contrary position will never\nbe established. Ignorant as we are, respecting the true centre of\nour mental firmament, we must necessarily be always more ignorant\nrespecting all _possibilities_ which seemingly outlie its glowing\nhorizon. No one who rationally weighs the worth of a fact, or who\ndecomposes it into its elementary constituents, will ever be absurd\nenough to imagine that he can disprove the ideal theory by proving the\ntruth of its opposite.\n\nThe strongest strain of Idealism comes upon the _last_ sentence. Some\nyears ago, English philosophers had agreed in the conclusion that all\ndebates must for the future be settled by an appeal to facts. Could\nthere be a more happily chosen ground for arbitration?--or one better\nsuited to the calibre of everybody concerning whose business-like\nreflections we might say, with King Henry,--\n\n    \"His thinkings are below the moon\"?\n\nSome inquiring spirits preferred \"law,\" but then they agreed with all\nothers, (except transcendentalists,) that a law to be valid must also\nbe a fact.\n\nA belief in this settlement still pervades most non-philosophic\ncircles. A fact is now-a-days an infallible remedy for the disturbed\nmind; just as once\n\n        \"the sovereign'st thing on earth\n    Was parmaceti for an inward bruise.\"\n\nA mind too disturbed to abstain from logical litigation when this\nreceipt is administered, must certainly be afflicted with monomania.\nNobody, of course, (whether Idealist or Transcendentalist,) need feel\nmuch aggrieved by being called mad. At some time or other, it is the\ncommon lot of all, from a murderer proud of being caught red-handed\nin our day, to a Jewish Pharisee and the son of a Pharisee, long ago\ndeparted to his rest. Besides, some madnesses are so fortunate as to\njustify themselves, an event now happening to Idealists.[104] In\nGermany, France and England, the persuasion gains ground that no tasks\nare so difficult as first to define, and secondly to establish a fact.\n\nNow the task of a Natural Theologian, is to establish, (if he can),\nthe greatest and most solemn of all facts. In order to do his work\nhonestly, he must ascertain as far as possible the conditions of proof,\nthe ground on which fact-knowledge reposes. And it will be admitted\nthat the problem of evidence raised by Idealism, is difficult, crucial,\nand underlies all other problems. \"The most fundamental questions in\nphilosophy,\" says Mr. Mill, \"are those which seek to determine what\nwe are able to know of external objects, and by what evidence we know\nit.\"[105]\n\nThis field of inquiry is therefore of the most supreme interest to us.\nIdealism possesses an additional attraction for any one who argues\nunder a belief in the final victory of truth. Both sides of the\nargument may be placed in high relief, without incurring the imputation\nof bad faith, or worse morality; and thus Idealism furnishes what used\nto be sought for during the days of tournaments,--a strictly neutral,\nground.\n\nIn this ordeal let no one think a single effort directed\n\n    \"To crush a butterfly or brain a gnat.\"\n\nReasoners on \"hard texts\" seldom commit any error between premises and\nconclusion;--granted the former, the other will surely follow. Most\noversights occur--or are slipped in--over the first postulates.[106]\nThese generally appear very simple and very true, and pass\nunquestioned. Yet, no primary truth can ever be very simple to man,\nelse why so many conscientious doubters?\n\nWhat indeed can seem more _simply_ true than the admission of a fact?\nYet facts are often inspissated theories, while many theories are\nmerely explained facts. One of the greatest authorities on Inductive\nPhilosophy writes thus (Whewell's Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences.\nEd. 2. Vol. I. p. 45)--\"We are often told that such a thing is _a\nFact_; A FACT and not a Theory, with all the emphasis which,\nin speaking or writing, tone or italics or capitals can give. We\nsee from what has been said, that when this is urged, before we can\nestimate the truth, or the value of the assertion, we must ask to whom\nis it a Fact? what habits of thought, what previous information, what\nIdeas does it imply, to conceive the Fact as a Fact? Does not the\napprehension of the Fact imply assumptions which may with equal justice\nbe called Theory and which are perhaps false Theory? in which case, the\nFact is no Fact. Did not the ancients assert it as a Fact, that the\nearth stood still, and the stars moved? and can any Fact have stronger\napparent evidence to justify persons in asserting it emphatically than\nthis had?\"\n\nThe generality of English jurymen might be expected to give an\naffirmative verdict. For have they not seen with their own eyes the Sun\nrise up in the East, ascend to the top of the sky, and go down in the\nWest? And is not seeing, believing?\n\nThe question, what elements are required to yield the product of\ntrustworthy perception, phenomenon, or fact, is investigated by Dr.\nWhewell through several pages preceding the one from which we have\nquoted. After discussing it at length, he writes (p. 42): \"And thus,\nwe have an intelligible distinction of Fact and Theory, if we consider\nTheory as a conscious, and Fact as an _un_conscious inference, from the\nphenomena which are presented to our senses.\"\n\nThe subject is in itself so singularly interesting that a few more\nextracts are added in our Additional Notes.[y] Let the reader, while\nperusing them, remember that Idealism once so sovereign in its empire,\nis only the other pole of a line of thought which just now happens to\nbe in the ascendant. Both poles strongly resemble half-truths. And what\nis more delusive in evidence than a half-truth, or more perilously\nsophisticating to the mind of him who utters it?\n\nThe thorough-paced Idealist deals with the presentations of his inner\nconsciousness, precisely as the Positivist deals with the presentations\nof his outer senses. They are _his_ phenomena, his facts. Beyond the\ncircumstances of their inward occurrence and succession he knows and\ncan know nothing. You may arrange them into series of antecedents\nand consequents,--and then the observation becomes a law,--a law\nof association, uniform order, or necessary connection: whichever\nyou may choose to call it. In one respect, he has an advantage over\nthe Positivist. No thinker equidistant from both, is likely to deny\nthat primary facts are for every man, the phenomena most immediately\napparent to his own consciousness.\n\nAmongst ordinary men, however, the reasoning Idealist seldom appears;\nthe Idealist in feeling and temper is by no means rare. A man weary and\nworn by sorrow or old age, thinks and speaks of his life as very like a\ndream. And numbers who have exhausted the strength of self-controlling\nwill, loiter along their way, regardless whether a moving panorama on\neach hand is or is not, an unreality. Like travel-tired travellers down\nthe Danube, or the Rhine, they interweave scenes bright and dark, as\nthey float by, in one endless train of dimly felt reverie.\n\nThe same characteristic holds good in regard to many a Positivist.\nVery few people have ever examined those iron wheels, on which the\nconclusions of Positively-inclined writers seem to run so rapidly. They\nmay be flawed--they may be true--hardly any one has thought of sounding\nthem. But common life has its Positivism, as well as its Chemistry; and\nthe Positivism of common life is everywhere. It saves labour,--you may\ntake facts as you find them. It troubles no one,--a Pyrrhonic posture\nis the easiest of attitudes. It frees busy people from moral anxieties,\nideal terrors, the shadows of futurity. In short, to men of the world\nit is neither more nor less than Indifferentism.\n\nThe comparison between these two Nihilistic tendencies might be\npushed farther, but it has been carried far enough for our purpose.\nBoth sorts, when viewed as principles of practical life, coincide\nin yielding the conclusion we now wish to deduce. It is folly to\nbe deterred from the pursuit of ultimate truth, by any amount of\nspeculative difficulty whatsoever. And the reason is plain. Practical\ntruths--the beliefs which affect our hearts and lives--are always\nultimate truths. To give them up, is to give up our highest and\nbest,--perhaps our all. It is worse than useless to quail before\nintellectual obstacles. The Difficult soon begins to appear the\nImpossible.\n\nAnd soon the result ensues, which might naturally be expected. Is it\npossible to imagine any discouragement heavier, than the feeling that\nwe can effect little to acquire a knowledge of truth, goodness, and\nGod;--a feeling, that do what we will, all we want most--all that\nis truly Divine--must remain to us a darkness or a dream? Let any\nman think in his heart, that what ought to rule his life, and raise\nhim higher than his lower self, is a secret unknowable, and he loses\nthe fear of doing wrong;--for how can he help it?--and the hope of\na brighter and better future;--for how shall he attain it? Then, he\nsits down to wrap himself in cynical self-sufficingness. Inevitable\nignorance is soon developed into intellectual Pessimism. The death of\nhope and fear, makes the man himself a moral Pessimist. Our conscience,\nsympathy, devotion, happiness in higher and in lower things alike,--if\nunstirred by vivid emotions--must become dull and blunted. Next follows\n\n    \"The waveless calm, the slumber of the dead;\"--\n\na state of suspended animation, broken only by fierce stimulants--the\ngalvanisms of, our lower life. These are succeeded, in due course, by\nspasmodic susceptibilities, which demand at no distant day the anodyne\nand the narcotic. And--\n\n    \"Oh, that way madness lies!\"--\n\nTherefore we repeat it,--and it cannot too often or too earnestly be\nrepeated,--let no man excuse himself from the pursuit of practical\ntruth[z] by any amount of speculative difficulty whatsoever. It\nwould be a false optimism to say there is no difficulty in thinking\ntruly;--to represent its difficulties as trifles;--or to forget the\npainful fact that they beset our age of cold erudite criticism, like\npitfalls in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. But, must not all things\nreally great and good be toilsome to men who are neither very good nor\nvery great? And have we not, every one of us, who tries to be good, our\nproper fields of hard yet repaying work? The bee gathers honey where\none idle schoolboy sees only thorns and briers--and where another sucks\npoison.\n\nIn our days, Doubt is thorough. So thorough, that it soon ceases to be\ndoubt, and the mind passes quickly from its dim twilight to a rayless\nblank. Mr. Herbert Spencer puts the case of Theology as follows (First\nPrinciples p. 43): \"Criticising the essential conceptions involved\nin the different orders of beliefs, we find no one of them to be\nlogically defensible. Passing over the consideration of credibility,\nand confining ourselves to that of conceivability, we see that Atheism,\nPantheism, and Theism, when rigorously analysed, severally prove to be\nabsolutely unthinkable.\" These three conceptions the writer does in\nfact analyse after his own fashion,--briefly first, pp. 30-36,--and\nfurther on argues the whole question _in extenso_. The result, of\ncourse, is that all three \"beliefs\" must finally be abandoned. What\nthen becomes of the Absolute ground, or First Cause of all things?\nSpencer is too clear-sighted not to acknowledge that there must\nin reason be a First, and an Absolute. \"M. Herbert Spencer,\" says\nRavaisson,[107] \"en proclamant la grande maxime que nous ne connaissons\nrien que de relatif, a fait cependant une r\u00e9serve importante. L'id\u00e9e\nm\u00eame du relatif, remarque-t-il, ne saurait se comprendre sans celle\n\u00e0 laquelle elle est oppos\u00e9e. Et nous concevons, en effet, au del\u00e0\nde toutes les relations de ph\u00e9nom\u00e8nes, l'absolu: c'est ce quelque\nchose qui est plac\u00e9 au del\u00e0 de toute science, et qui est l'objet de\nla religion; quelque chose seulement de myst\u00e9rieux, d'obscur, sur\nquoi on ne peut avoir, selon M. Spencer, aucune lumi\u00e8re.\" The last\nnegative clause is amply justified on p. 113 of \"First Principles.\" \"By\ncontinually seeking to know, and being continually thrown back with a\ndeepened conviction of the impossibility of knowing, we may keep alive\nthe consciousness that it is alike our highest wisdom and our highest\nduty to regard that through which all things exist as The Unknowable.\"\nAnd this closing word becomes with Spencer, the constant name of a\nPower, the consciousness, of which is \"manifested to us through all\nphenomena.\"[108]\n\nSuch a position, maintained by such a writer, has of course met with\nample consideration. Mr. Huxley appears to have arrived at a somewhat\nsimilar conclusion. Of Religion he says,[109] \"Arising, like all other\nkinds of knowledge, out of the action and interaction of man's mind,\nwith that which is not man's mind, it has taken the intellectual\ncoverings of Fetishism or Polytheism; of Theism or Atheism; of\nSuperstition or Rationalism. With these, and their relative merits\nand demerits, I have nothing to do; but this it is needful for my\npurpose to say, that if the religion of the present differs from that\nof the past, it is because the theology of the present has become more\nscientific than that of the past; because it has not only renounced\nidols of wood and idols of stone, but begins to see the necessity of\nbreaking in pieces the idols built up of books and traditions and\nfine-spun ecclesiastical cobwebs, and of cherishing the noblest and\nmost human of man's emotions, by worship 'for the most part of the\nsilent sort' at the altar of the Unknown and Unknowable.\"\n\nConcerning this general idea (or negation of Idea) Mr. J. Martineau has\nmade antagonistic observations, by way of criticism on Mr. Spencer's\nbook. \"To say,\" he writes,[110] \"that the First Cause is wholly\nremoved from our apprehension is not simply a disclaimer of faculty on\nour part; it is a charge of inability against the First Cause too....\nAnd in the very act of declaring the First Cause incognizable, you do\nnot permit it to remain unknown. For that only is unknown, of which\nyou can neither affirm nor deny any predicate; here you deny the power\nof self-disclosure to the 'Absolute,' of which therefore something\nis known;--viz., that nothing can be known,\" And again with much\nforce,[111] \"You cannot constitute a religion out of mystery alone,\nany more than out of knowledge alone; nor can you measure the relation\nof doctrines to humility and piety by the mere amount of conscious\ndarkness which they leave. All worship, being directed to what is\n_above_ us and transcends our comprehension, stands in presence of a\nmystery. But not all that stands before a mystery is worship.\"[aa]\n\nMr. Mill (doing battle with another antagonist) denies every attribute\nclaiming faith and worship, to the idea of a _morally Unknowable_ God.\nThe passage occurs in his Examination of Hamilton, pp. 123-4. \"If,\ninstead of the 'glad tidings' that there exists a Being in whom all\nthe excellences which the highest human mind can conceive, exist in a\ndegree inconceivable to us, I am informed that the world is ruled by a\nbeing whose attributes are infinite, but what they are we cannot learn,\nnor what are the principles of his government, except that 'the highest\nhuman morality which we are capable of conceiving' does not sanction\nthem; convince me of it, and I will bear my fate as I may. But when I\nam told that I must believe this, and at the same time call this being\nby the names which express and affirm the highest human morality, I say\nin plain terms that I will not. Whatever power such a being may have\nover me, there is one thing which he shall not do: he shall not compel\nme to worship him.\"[ab]\n\nNow, suppose that instead of siding on this occasion with Mill and\nMartineau, we were to accept the alternative offered by Spencer and\nHuxley. Would this surrender of Natural Theology--or rather of all\nTheology--necessitate in reason any _other_ vast surrender also? We\nhave already answered in the affirmative. The surrender would penetrate\nevery field of knowledge and of thought. We have already shewn this.\nFor, the thread binding the present section into a connected whole\nruns thus: Survey the conditions of interrogating, _first_, nature;\n_secondly_, our own highest nature; _next_, our senses; _finally_, our\nconsciousness; and _add_ to them the enormous difficulties which attend\nevery step taken in compliance with those indispensable _conditions_.\nIndispensable, that is, to our knowing anything, of any sort, in any\nway whatsoever. You have, then, no right to isolate Theism. It is\nfalse logic, to speak of the intellectual difficulties attaching to\nour apprehension of the Deity, as if they were substantial objections.\nIn this respect, Theism stands within the same category of speculative\nperplexity, and reasonable necessity, as do other supreme truths.[112]\n\nPut the case to the judgment of Reason, once for all. If we agreed\nto accept Herbert Spencer's position, we should consent to deny that\nanything can be known of an Absolute. And the denial would proceed\nupon _this_ maxim:--\"whatsoever is inexplicable is also unknowable.\"\nConsider, now, what other ultimate truths would fall into the same\ntomb-like Category. We must silence all human utterance respecting all\nfirst grounds;--our own individuality;--and every object of reason\nwhich becomes inconceivable, when we attempt to define it by the\nprocesses of ordinary logic. All utterance respecting our own senses\nand sensations;--our own existence, as beings distinct from a world of\nbeings and things really existing outside us.\n\nIn fine, we could never know that we _know_ either anything or nothing;\nfor, we should have silenced the deepest of all utterances,--_the_ one\nupon which all truth and reason depend. We should have relegated our\nMind along with our God, to the same abysmal gulf of the Unknowable.\nHenceforth, we could predicate of Mind nothing essential to purposes of\nknowledge,--and least of all essentials,--Veracity.\n\nMr. Mill closes his laborious endeavours to explain our natural belief\nin Mind as follows: \"The truth is, that we are here face to face with\nthat final inexplicability, at which, as Sir W. Hamilton observes, we\ninevitably arrive when we reach ultimate facts; and in general, one\nmode of stating it only appears more incomprehensible than another,\nbecause the whole of human language is accommodated to the one, and\nis so incongruous with the other, that it cannot be expressed in any\nterms which do not deny its truth. The real stumbling-block is perhaps\nnot in any theory of the fact, but in the fact itself. The true\nincomprehensibility perhaps is, that something which has ceased, or is\nnot yet in existence, can still be in a manner, present: that a series\nof feelings, the infinitely greater part of which is past or future,\ncan be gathered up, as it were, into a single present conception,\naccompanied by a belief of reality. I think, by far the wisest thing\nwe can do, is to accept the inexplicable fact, without any theory of\nhow it takes place; and when we are obliged to speak of it in terms\nwhich assume a theory, to use them with a reservation as to their\nmeaning.\"[113] Two pages further he ingenuously adds: \"I do not profess\nto have adequately accounted for the belief in Mind.\" In other words,\nthe perplexities remain on Mill's system as they do on all systems.\nBut the Belief and the Fact remain likewise.\n\nIt is the same with our belief of other ultimate facts. We live an\nindividual life,--we know not what. We see and perceive,--we know not\nhow. Yet such are the facts, and we thoroughly believe and act upon\nthem.\n\nThe pivot on which these and similar beliefs turn is a subject of the\ngreatest interest and importance. On this same pivot turns our primary\naffirmative Argument for Natural Theism. To establish it will be the\npurpose of the next Chapter, and a succession of affirmative arguments,\nseparate but convergent, will occupy the remainder of this Essay.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nCOROLLARY:--If any reader of these pages has felt the\nfascination of some one among the many materializing hypotheses now in\nvogue, let him remember that, in fair debate, Materialism can never\nhave the slightest chance against Idealism.\n\nAll materializing theories labour under an enormous weight of\nunverified postulates. They set out from neither the most _natural_,\nnor yet the _surest_, sources of our knowledge. Naturally, we start\nfrom _self-ness_, and learn to put outer things and beings in\nopposition to our own primary self-consciousness.\n\nIn after life, when we ask _why_ we are sure of any kind of knowledge;\nthe primary truths upon which _all_ our reasonings proceed, are always\nthe presentations of our own mind.\n\nIf we proceed to analyse accepted relativities, we soon perceive that\nMind enters into our facts, and also into our sense-presentations. In\nparticular, an examination of the noblest of all senses--the sense of\nsight--will convince any careful analyst that such is undeniably the\ncase. The reader may recal Mr. Mill's words,[114]--\"I do not believe\nthat the real externality to us of anything, except other minds,\nis capable of proof.\" \"For ourselves,\" says Professor Fraser, \"we\ncan conceive only--(1) An externality to our present and transient\nexperience in _our own_ possible experience past and future, and (2)\nAn externality to our own conscious experience, in the contemporaneous,\nas well as in the past or future experience of _other minds_\"[115]\nIn this view Mr. Mill (who quotes Fraser), entirely acquiesces, and\nin this same spirit he writes, \"Matter may be defined, a Permanent\nPossibility of Sensation;\"[116]--and adds that he can accept no other\ndefinition.\n\nWhether the reader can or cannot define Matter otherwise; he will, at\nall events, perceive that the Materialist assumes as _his_ primary\npostulate, that which is by no means _the_ primary fact accepted\nby Mankind. He starts with taking Matter for granted;--but, if he\ninquires, he will discover that Matter is known to him in the _second_\nplace only; he really _first_ knew Mind. When he questions sensation,\nor consciousness, he questions Mind; and, throughout his whole life,\ntheoretical as well as practical, Mind is _nearer_ to him, and more\n_strongly_ evidenced, than any other \"Possibility\" whatsoever.\n\nSuch, then, is the _first_ heavy burden of unauthorized postulation,\nwhich the Materialist's theory binds upon him. But, in the task of\npostulating without authority from Nature, it seems impossible to\nstop short. Mind, being an absolute necessity, must be got in some\nway--(from Matter of course)--evolved, correlated, secreted. No account\nis given _how_ Matter could have been thus transformed and glorified.\nYet, in default of such account, it is impossible to divine _why_ that\nprimary postulate ever existed at all.\n\nThe highest attenuation of Matter can no more help to explain Life or\nMind, than to say that brain, (deprived of its vitality,) is composed\nof cerebrin, lecythin, and cholesterin, explains its sensibility, and\nother vital and intellectual endowments. And we encounter the same\nunbridged gulf at every turn of the materialistic hypothesis. There is\na wide gap between the inorganic world and all organisms, vegetable or\nanimal. We are, however, told that when certain inorganic elements are\ncombined, under certain conditions, they form protoplasm,--a substance\nmanifesting phenomena of vitality. The elements are known,--the\nconditions are unknown,--and until protoplasm has been produced by\na chemical experimenter, instead of within a living laboratory, we\nmay safely believe that the unknown conditions form the essential\ncause of the production. And we are given to understand by Professor\nHuxley,[117] that on this subject speculation has been premature.\n\nThe gap between Body and Mind is wider still. Body has its known\nproperties,--measurable figure, weight, and other like specialties.\nMind has its properties also,--such as intelligence, emotion, reason,\nwill. _Thinking_ has never been shown to be a property of Body; nor\nhave _weight_ and _measure_ been applied to Mind. The laws of each\ndiffer as decisively as their properties. Body obeys gravitation,\ncohesion, and chemical affinity. Mind has its laws of reasoning,\nmathematically, logically, analogically. Now, what resemblance is\nhere visible?[118] Body cannot compel Will,--but is moved by it;\nand there is no more verisimilitude known to us of Body to Will,\nthan there exists between the noble thought of a high-souled Man\nand the paving-stone he walks upon. The foregoing is, as every\nhonest materialist will acknowledge, but a slight specimen of the\nmany difficulties of Materialism. So little does any materializing\nprocess of \"resolution\" really resolve anything, that _any_--even the\nmost plausible--can only be pronounced an abortive attempt to bring\nsomething near and familiar to us, out of something unknowably remote.\n\nThe materialist's allegation is generally, that he wishes to accept\nas little as possible. But the accusation of the natural Theologian\nagainst Materialism, is that it accepts far too much. Mind being a\nnecessary and indispensable fact, the one fact underlying all other\nfacts,--whoever is bent on simplifying his beliefs, had better begin\nby believing in his own Soul. And if further bent on viewing all things\nas \"resolvable,\" his surest wisdom will be to resolve Matter into\nMind. It is really the easier alternative, and has a double merit,--it\nstarts from the best-known fact, and it satisfies his desire for\n\"simplification.\"\n\nAt all events, the consequences resulting from Materialism, are too\nserious to permit a disregard of Probability. We must, surely, find and\nfollow the very best guide we can:--\n\n    \"These are no school-points; nice philosophy\n    May tolerate unlikely arguments,\n    But heaven admits no jests.\"\n\nMr. Huxley,[119] who sees advantages (simplicity and unification)\nin employing a materialistic terminology, adds the very striking\ncaution--\"But the man of science, who, forgetting the limits of\nphilosophical inquiry, slides from these\" (materialistic) \"formul\u00e6\nand symbols into what is commonly understood by materialism, seems\nto me to place himself on a level with the mathematician, who should\n_mistake_ the x's and y's, with which he works his problems, _for real\nentities_--and with this further disadvantage, as compared with the\nmathematician, that the blunders of the latter are of no practical\nconsequence, while the errors of systematic materialism may paralyse\nthe energies and destroy the beauty of a life.\"\n\nThe words italicized are remarkable. The materializing _fa\u00e7ons de\nparler_ do not embody a knowledge of \"real entities\" after all. And\nsuch is the language of one[120] who stands in the foremost rank of\nEuropean Biologists.\n\n\nADDITIONAL NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER III.\n\n\nA.--ACCOUNT OF SOME THEORIES RESPECTING OUR PERSONAL IDENTITY.\n\nIn a sentence worthy of the pen of Glanvill or of Sir T. Browne, Locke\nremarked \"The _Ideas_, as well as Children of our Youth, often die\nbefore us: And our Minds represent to us those Tombs, to which we\nare approaching; where, though the Brass and Marble remain, yet the\nInscriptions are effaced by Time, and the Imagery moulders away. _The\nPictures drawn in our Minds, are laid in fading Colours_, and if not\nsometimes refreshed, vanish and disappear.\" _On Retention_, B. II.,\nchap. x. 5.\n\nThis truly human feeling did not hinder Locke from writing (chap,\nxxvii.) on the subject of Self-ness in a manner which appeared to imply\nthat Consciousness, or Consciousness _plus_ Memory \"_made_\" Personal\nIdentity;--or to use Reid's words \"whatever hath the consciousness of\npresent and past actions, is the same person to whom they belong.\"\n\nBishop Butler's strictures on the topic are known to most students:\nbut, as Sir William Hamilton observes (Foot-note on Reid, pp. 350,\n351), \"Long before Butler, to whom the merit is usually ascribed,\nLocke's doctrine of Personal Identity had been attacked and refuted.\nThis was done even by his earliest critic, John Sergeant, whose words,\nas he is an author wholly unknown to all historians of philosophy, and\nhis works of the rarest, I shall quote. He thus argues:--'The former\ndistinction forelaid, he (Locke) proceeds to make _personal identity in\nman to consist in the consciousness that we are the same thinking thing\nin different times and places_. He proves it, because consciousness\nis inseparable from thinking, and, as it seems to him, _essential_ to\nit.... But, to speak to the point: Consciousness of any action or other\naccident we have now, or have had, is nothing but our knowledge that\nit belonged to us; and, since we both agree that we have no innate\nknowledges, it follows, that all, both actual and habitual knowledges,\nwhich we have, are acquired or accidental to the subject or knower.\n_Wherefore, the man, or that thing which is to be the knower, must have\nhad individuality or personality, from other principles, antecedently\nto this knowledge, called consciousness: and, consequently, he will\nretain his identity, or continue the same man, or (which is equivalent)\nthe same person, as long as he has those individuating principles...._\nIt being then most evident, _that a man must be the same, ere he can\nknow or be conscious that he is the same_, all his laborious descants\nand extravagant consequences which are built upon this supposition,\nthat consciousness individuates the person, can need no farther\nrefutation.'\n\n\"The same objection was also made by Leibnitz in his strictures on\nLocke's Essay....\n\n\"For the best criticism of Locke's doctrine of Personal Identity, I\nmay, however, refer the reader to M. Cousin's '_Cours de Philosophie_.'\"\n\nOne of Locke's arguments is worthy of attention from its oddity. He\nsays (chap. xxvii. 20), \"But if it be possible for the same Man to have\ndistinct incommunicable Consciousnesses at different Times, it is past\ndoubt the same Man would at different Times make different Persons;\nwhich, we see, is the Sense of Mankind in the solemnest Declaration of\ntheir Opinions, Human Laws not punishing the _Mad Man_ for the _Sober\nMan's_ Actions, nor the _Sober Man_ for what the _Mad Man_ did, thereby\nmaking them two Persons; which is somewhat explained by our Way of\nspeaking in _English_, when we say, such a one _is not himself_, or is\n_besides himself_; in which Phrases it is insinuated, as if those who\nnow, or at least, first used them, thought that _Self_ was changed, the\n_self_ same Person was no longer in that Man.\"\n\nIt appears strange that so acute a writer should not have perceived the\ntrue consequences to be deduced from his observation. We never really\ntreat a man who goes mad as becoming another personage. But if he has\nlost his self-control from causes by himself uncontrollable, we do not\npunish his criminalities, and we do divest him of his social powers; he\ncan neither vote for Parliament, bequeath property, nor do many other\nacts, during the period of his affliction. But we use all means for his\ncure, and rejoice at his return to health and society. If a man \"beside\nhimself\" were \"a different person,\" then \"tipsy he\" would certainly\nnot be \"ipse he.\"--Yet the father of ethical science decided that the\ncriminal drunkard deserves double meed of punishment.\n\nTo Locke's theory of Personal Identity Hamilton dedicates one more\nnote. He gives (_Reid_, p. 353), an extract from Lord Kames (_Essays\non the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion_), who pronounces\nhis own opinion and appends some unpublished remarks of Dr. Reid.\n\"Mr. Locke, writing on personal identity, has fallen short of his\nusual accuracy. He inadvertently jumbles together the identity that\nis nature's work, with our knowledge of it. Nay, he expresses himself\nsometimes as if identity had no other foundation than that knowledge.\nI am favoured by Dr. Reid with the following thoughts on personal\nidentity:--\n\n\"'All men agree that personality is indivisible; a part of a person\nis an absurdity. A man who loses his estate, his health, an arm, or\na leg, continues still to be the same person. My personal identity,\ntherefore, is the continued existence of that indivisible thing which\nI call myself. I am not thought; I am not action; I am not feeling;\nbut I think, and act, and feel. Thoughts, actions, feelings, change\nevery moment; but _self_, to which they belong, is permanent. If it be\nasked how I know that it is permanent, the answer is, that I know it\nfrom memory. Everything I remember to have seen, or heard, or done,\nor suffered, convinces me that I existed at the time remembered. But,\nthough it is from memory that I have the knowledge of my personal\nidentity, yet personal identity must exist in nature, independent of\nmemory; otherwise, I should only be the same person as far as my memory\nserves me; and what would become of my existence during the intervals\nwherein my memory has failed me? My remembrance of any of my actions\ndoes not make me to be the person who did the action, but only makes\nme know that I was the person who did it. And yet it was Mr. Locke's\nopinion, that my remembrance of an action is what makes me to be the\nperson who did it; a pregnant instance that even men of the greatest\ngenius may sometimes fall into an absurdity. Is it not an obvious\ncorollary, from Mr. Locke's opinion, that he never was born? He could\nnot remember his birth; and, therefore, was not the person born at such\na place and at such a time.'\"\n\nWhen we come to Hume, the case is considerably altered. He opens\nthe question after his own manner by asking _how_ the fact commonly\nstated can be; and using the difficulty of explaining this \"how\" as\na sufficient objection against the fact asserted. \"There are some\nphilosophers,\" he writes (_Treatise_, B. I., Part iv., Sect. 6), \"who\nimagine we are every moment intimately conscious of what we call our\n_self_; that we feel its existence and its continuance in existence;\nand are certain, beyond the evidence of a demonstration, both of its\nperfect identity and simplicity....\n\n\"Unluckily all these positive assertions are contrary to that very\nexperience, which is pleaded for them, nor have we any idea of _self_,\nafter the manner it is here explained. For from what impression could\nthis idea he derived?... If any impression gives rise to the idea of\nself, that impression must continue invariably the same, through the\nwhole course of our lives; since self is supposed to exist after that\nmanner. But there is no impression constant and invariable. Pain and\npleasure, grief and joy, passions and sensations succeed each other,\nand never all exist at the same time. It cannot therefore be from any\nof these impressions, or from any other, that the idea of self is\nderived; and consequently there is no such idea.... For my part, when\nI enter most intimately into what I call _myself_, I always stumble\non some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or\nshade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch _myself_\nat any time without a perception, and never can observe anything\nbut the perception.... The mind is a kind of theatre, where several\nperceptions successively make their appearance; pass, re-pass, glide\naway, and mingle in an infinite variety of postures and situations.\nThere is properly no _simplicity_ in it at one time, nor _identity_\nin different; whatever natural propension we may have to imagine that\nsimplicity and identity. The comparison of the theatre must not mislead\nus. They are the successive perceptions only, that constitute the mind;\nnor have we the most distant notion of the place, where these scenes\nare represented, or of the materials, of which it is composed.\"\n\nIt is curious that Hume wishing to represent Mind as a melting mist of\nsuccessive perceptions, should be driven into the use of a word which\nimplied a something continuing and permanent as affording the _stage_\non which all passing scenes called \"impressions\" are enacted.\n\nHume next discusses the laws of association; and then proceeds (same\nSection sub fin.) \"As memory alone acquaints us with the continuance\nand extent of this succession of perceptions, 'tis to be considered,\nupon that account chiefly, as the source of personal identity. Had\nwe no memory, we never should have any notion of causation, nor\nconsequently of that chain of causes and effects, which constitute our\nself or person. But having once acquired this notion of causation from\nthe memory, we can extend the same chain of causes, and consequently\nthe identity of our persons beyond our memory, and can comprehend\ntimes, and circumstances, and actions, which we have entirely forgot,\nbut suppose in general to have existed. For how few of our past\nactions are there, of which we have any memory? Who can tell me, for\ninstance, what were his thoughts and actions on the first of January,\n1715, the eleventh of March, 1719, and the third of August, 1733? Or\nwill he affirm, because he has entirely forgot the incidents of these\ndays, that the present self is not the same person with the self\nof that time; and by that means overturn all the most established\nnotions of personal identity? In this view therefore memory does not\nso much _produce_ as _discover_ personal identity, by shewing us the\nrelation of cause and effect among our different perceptions. 'Twill\nbe incumbent on those who affirm that memory produces entirely our\npersonal identity, to give a reason why we can thus extend our identity\nbeyond our memory.\n\n\"The whole of this doctrine leads us to a conclusion, which is of great\nimportance in the present affair, viz., that all the nice and subtile\nquestions concerning personal identity can never possibly be decided,\nand are to be regarded rather as grammatical than as philosophical\ndifficulties. Identity depends on the relations of ideas; and these\nrelations produce identity, by means of that easy transition they\noccasion. But as the relations, and the easiness of the transition may\ndiminish by insensible degrees, we have no just standard by which we\ncan decide any dispute concerning the time, when they acquire or lose a\ntitle to the name of identity. All the disputes concerning the identity\nof connected objects are merely verbal, except so far as the relation\nof parts gives rise to some fiction or imaginary principle of union, as\nwe have already observed.\"\n\nIf any one feels dissatisfied with these conclusions our author\nis ready with his apology--\"The _intense_ view of these manifold\ncontradictions and imperfections in human reason has so wrought upon\nme, and heated my brain, that I am ready to reject all belief and\nreasoning, and can look upon no opinion even as more probable or likely\nthan another. Where am I, or what? From what causes do I derive my\nexistence, and to what condition shall I return? Whose favour shall\nI court, and whose anger must I dread? What beings surround me? and\non whom have I any influence, or who have any influence on me? I am\nconfounded with all these questions, and begin to fancy myself in\nthe most deplorable condition imaginable, environed with the deepest\ndarkness, and utterly deprived of the use of every member and faculty.\n\n\"Most fortunately it happens, that since reason is incapable of\ndispelling these clouds, nature herself suffices to that purpose,\nand cures me of this philosophical melancholy and delirium, either\nby relaxing this bent of mind, or by some avocation, and lively\nimpression of my senses, which obliterate all these chimeras. I dine,\nI play a game of back-gammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends;\nand when after three or four hours' amusement, I would return to these\nspeculations, they appear so cold, and strained, and ridiculous, that\nI cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther.\" (Part iv.,\nSection 7.)\n\nIs not this good-humoured? Is it not a piece of pleasant bantering, to\nbe equalled only by certain French philosophers? The real conclusion,\nhowever, winds up his First Book and runs as follows:--\"A true\nsceptic will be diffident of his philosophical doubts, as well as\nof his philosophical conviction; and will never refuse any innocent\nsatisfaction, which offers itself, upon account of either of them.\n\n\"Nor is it only proper we should in general indulge our inclination\nin the most elaborate philosophical researches, notwithstanding our\nsceptical principles, but also that we should yield (sic) to that\npropensity, which inclines us to be positive and certain in _particular\npoints_, according to the light, in which we survey them in any\n_particular instant_. 'Tis easier to forbear all examination and\ninquiry, than to check ourselves in so natural a propensity, and guard\nagainst that assurance, which always arises from an exact and full\nsurvey of an object. On such an occasion we are apt not only to forget\nour scepticism, but even our modesty too; and make use of such terms\nas these, _'tis evident_, _'tis certain_, _'tis undeniable_; which a\ndue deference to the public ought, perhaps, to prevent. I may have\nfallen into this fault after the example of others; but I here enter\na _caveat_ against any objections, which may be offered on that head;\nand declare that such expressions were extorted from me by the present\nview of the object, and imply no dogmatical spirit, nor conceited idea\nof my own judgment, which are sentiments that I am sensible can become\nnobody, and a sceptic still less than any other.[121]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is obvious to remark that no amount of easiness would maintain\nmost minds in this balanced position of the pleasant know-nothing\nman. The general tendency would be to acknowledge the negative side\nalone. And it would be well if an absence of serious convictions,\nseriously asserted, and acted on, did not gradually weaken the sense of\nResponsibility by making Truth appear indifferent because unattainable.\n\nWe, however, are just now more concerned with two other equally\nobvious comments. One, that Hume appears to take for granted the\npoint at issue. Suppose it for argument's sake to be true that\nimpressions and ideas (as described by him) make up our whole ordinary\nconsciousness; does this shew that no latent power or entity exists by\nwhich we _become_ conscious of those passing trains? When impressed by\ncolours, are we conscious of an optic nerve, retina, crystalline lens\nand other instrumental powers of vision? Can we, if we try, perceive by\nsense the nerve-currents brainwards, or the sensory which receives and\ncompares them? In both cases (eye and inward eye) pathology affords an\nevidence of consciousness which happy health refuses us. The brainsick\nsense sees colours and phantoms which are not--the disordered mind\ndwells on impressions and ideas absolutely unreal, and acts on them as\nstern realities. And thus our own purely subjective states reveal to us\nour own subjectivity. 'Tis so in fevers, in lunacies, in vices--'tis so\nto the drowning or the desperate man. These mournful changes which pass\nover ourselves issue from an interior activity of self-ness and form\none of its commonest verifications.\n\nThis first comment admits of extension. If we endeavour to introduce\nexperiment (as well as experience) into Mental Science, must we not ask\na previous question:--Shall this or that experiment be tried? In other\nwords, by what inner law shall we shape our inquiries so as to gain\nuseful facts for our intended induction?--Nay, we may further ask: What\ninner Being is to settle the questions, criticize them, and judge the\nfinal issue? And if we seem to see our way on these topics, we may feel\npretty sure that whenever our psychology comes to practical trial, we\nproceed as being sure of a Self, more or less _self-conscious of Self_,\nand are quite confident that its self-ness will continue during the\nwhole time of our investigations.\n\nOur second comment may be simply summed, but the consideration given\nto it ought to be minute and careful. Suppose instead of successive\nperceptions, impressions, or ideas, we substitute a succession of\nphenomena, and then apply to them Hume's line of thought, we have an\nacute statement of the modern teachings which relegate the noblest\npart of our Nature, our reasonings and our beliefs to the territory of\nthe Unknowable. In a word, all knowledge thus seems to be gained by\n\"looking on,\" none by \"looking in.\" Truth within ourselves especially\nif it manifests a Truth above ourselves is made to appear hopeless. And\nso far does the process of Elimination extend, that principles involved\neven in our \"looking on\" must not be drawn out of their latency, for\nfear they should become accepted parts of knowledge. Let any thinker\nrepeat with this substitution the Personal Identity argument in his\nown mind, and he will soon see what a shadow is cast over an infinitely\nwider world of thought.[122]\n\nThe same process of repetition ought in fairness to produce another\neffect. Are not these philosophic _arguti\u00e6_, these Pyrrhonic subtilties\nclosely akin to the difficulties raised against _all_ first principles;\nand more particularly all Theistic principles? But does anybody on\ntheir account doubt his own Self-ness or Identity? Or does any one\nrefuse to act on the supposition of _other-ness_, and _outer-ness_, or\nignore his world of fellow-men and hard objectivities which press upon\nhim from every side? Why then should anybody ignore on their account\nthe great First-Cause?\n\nIn the text of Chapter III. the elements of our reasonable belief\nin our own Personal self-ness and sameness have been shortly\nmentioned;--of such work-day belief, that is to say, as suffices\nfor actual life, and gains from it, and throughout it, a perpetual\nverification. If any one wishes to go deeper than this, he must inquire\nupon what evidence first principles are accepted by reasoning men; what\ndifficulties attach to such principles; and under what conditions these\ndifficulties are held to be nugatory. This inquiry is troublesome but\npromises real satisfaction. We have not, therefore, declined it, as may\nbe seen in the ensuing Chapter. One fact is manifest beforehand--that\nwhatever evidence is presupposed valid by those first principles of\nevery-day knowledge, may be safely presupposed, accepted, and reasoned\nupon, in the ground-work of Natural Theology.\n\nIt was Hume's object to push his scepticism to its most extreme verge.\nThus pushed, it \"so wrought upon\" him that he was \"ready to reject\nall belief and reasoning\" till a return to every-day life made his\nspeculations appear in his own eyes \"cold and strained and ridiculous.\"\nWhat then was the inference Hume himself intended? Which was really\ngroundless--every-day belief or scepticism? Will his useful dilemma\ninduce the reader to receive Kant's excuse for the celebrated doubter,\nwhen he bids us let the man alone because he is but trying the strength\nof human reason? At all events, Hume's way of stating his case seems to\njustify the old remark, that, while Superstition is refuted by Reason,\nNature itself refutes the Sceptic.\n\n\n B.--EXTRACTS FROM POPULAR LECTURES, BY PROFESSOR HELMHOLTZ, ON THE\n RECENT PROGRESS OF THE THEORY OF VISION.\n\n\"If now we compare the eye with other optical instruments, we observe\nthe advantage it has over them in its very large field of vision. This\nfor each eye separately is 160\u00b0 (nearly two right angles) laterally,\nand 120\u00b0 vertically, and for both together somewhat more than two right\nangles from right to left. The field of view of instruments made by art\nis usually very small, and becomes smaller with the increased size of\nthe image.\n\n\"But we must also admit, that we are accustomed to expect in these\ninstruments complete precision of the image in its entire extent, while\nit is only necessary for the image on the retina to be exact over a\nvery small surface, namely, that of the yellow spot. The diameter\nof the central pit corresponds in the field of vision to an angular\nmagnitude which can be covered by the nail of one's forefinger when the\nhand is stretched out as far as possible. In this small part of the\nfield our power of vision is so accurate that it can distinguish the\ndistance between two points, of only _one minute_ angular magnitude,\n_i.e._ a distance equal to the sixtieth part of the diameter of the\nfinger-nail. This distance corresponds to the width of one of the\ncones of the retina. All the other parts of the retinal image are seen\nimperfectly, and the more so the nearer to the limit of the retina they\nfall. So that the image which we receive by the eye is like a picture,\nminutely and elaborately finished in the centre, but only roughly\nsketched in at the borders. But although at each instant we only see\na very small part of the field of vision accurately, we see this in\ncombination with what surrounds it, and enough of this outer and larger\npart of the field, to notice any striking object, and particularly\nany change that takes place in it. All of this is unattainable in a\ntelescope.\n\n\"But if the objects are too small, we cannot discern them at all with\nthe greater part of the retina.\n\n    'When, lost in boundless blue on high,\n    The lark pours forth his thrilling song,'\n\nthe 'ethereal minstrel' is lost until we can bring her image to a focus\nupon the central pit of our retina. Then only are we able to _see_ her.\n\n\"To _look_ at anything means to place the eye in such a position that\nthe image of the object falls on the small region of perfectly clear\nvision. This we may call _direct_ vision, applying the term _indirect_\nto that exercised with the lateral parts of the retina--indeed with all\nexcept the yellow spot.\n\n\"The defects which result from the inexactness of vision and the\nsmaller number of cones in the greater part of the retina are\ncompensated by the rapidity with which we can turn the eye to one\npoint after another of the field of vision, and it is this rapidity of\nmovement which really constitutes the chief advantage of the eye over\nother optical instruments....\n\n\"A great part of the importance of the eye as an organ of expression\ndepends on the same fact; for the movements of the eyeball--its\nglances--are among the most direct signs of the movement of the\nattention, of the movements of the mind, of the person who is looking\nat us.\" _Popular Lectures on Scientific Subjects_, pp. 212-214.\n\nThe great German next proceeds to catalogue some principal defects of\nthe Eye. 1. Chromatic aberration connected with 2. spherical aberration\nand defective centering of the cornea and lens, together producing the\nimperfection known as astigmatism, and 3. irregular radiation round\nthe images of illuminated points. \"Now,\" adds Helmholtz, \"it is not\ntoo much to say that if an optician wanted to sell me an instrument\nwhich had all these defects, I should think myself quite justified in\nblaming his carelessness in the strongest terms, and giving him back\nhis instrument. Of course, I shall not do this with my eyes, and shall\nbe only too glad to keep them as long as I can--defects and all. Still,\nthe fact that, however bad they may be, I can get no others, does not\nat all diminish their defects, so long as I maintain the narrow but\nindisputable position of a critic on purely optical grounds.\" (p. 219.)\n\nHe then goes on to other faults. 4. Defective transparency. 5. Floating\ncorpuscules (Musc\u00e6 Volitantes). 6. The \"blind spot\" with other gaps\nin the field of vision. \"So much,\" he concludes, \"for the physical\nproperties of the Eye. If I am asked why I have spent so much time\nin explaining its imperfection to my readers, I answer, as I said at\nfirst, that I have not done so in order to depreciate the performances\nof this wonderful organ, or to diminish our admiration of its\nconstruction. It was my object to make the reader understand, at the\nfirst step of our inquiry, that it is not any mechanical perfection of\nthe organs of our senses which secures for us such wonderfully true\nand exact impressions of the outer world. The next section of this\ninquiry will introduce much bolder and more paradoxical conclusions\nthan any I have yet stated. We have now seen that the eye in itself is\nnot by any means so complete an optical instrument as it first appears:\nits extraordinary value depends upon the way in which we use it: its\nperfection is practical, not absolute.... Wherever we scrutinise the\nconstruction of physiological organs, we find the same character of\npractical adaptation to the wants of the organism; although, perhaps,\nthere is no instance which we can follow out so minutely as that of the\neye.\n\n\"For the eye has every possible defect that can be found in an optical\ninstrument, and even some which are peculiar to itself; but they are\nall so counteracted, that the inexactness of the image which results\nfrom their presence very little exceeds, under ordinary conditions of\nillumination, the limits which are set to the delicacy of sensation by\nthe dimensions of the retinal cones....\n\n\"The adaptation of the eye to its function is, therefore, most\ncomplete, and is seen in the very limits which are set to its defects.\nHere the result which may be reached by innumerable generations\nworking under the Darwinian law of inheritance, coincides with what\nthe wisest Wisdom may have devised beforehand. A sensible man will not\ncut firewood with a razor, and so we may assume that each step in the\nelaboration of the eye must have made the organ more vulnerable and\nmore slow in its development. We must also bear in mind that soft,\nwatery animal textures must always be unfavourable and difficult\nmaterial for an instrument of the mind....\n\n\"But, apparently, we are not yet come much nearer to understanding\nsight. We have only made one step: we have learnt how the optical\narrangement of the eye renders it possible to separate the rays of\nlight which come in from all parts of the field of vision, and to bring\ntogether again all those that have proceeded from a single point, so\nthat they may produce their effect upon a single fibre of the optic\nnerve.\n\n\"Let us see, therefore, how much we know of the sensations of the eye,\nand how far this will bring us towards the solution of the problem.\" P.\n226, seq.\n\nFrom the Professor's mention of \"much bolder and more paradoxical\nconclusions,\" the final result of his next inquiry may be anticipated.\nSensation is so far from making evident the truth of our visual\nknowledge that it increases our perplexities tenfold. \"The\ninaccuracies,\" he tells us, \"and imperfections of the eye as an optical\ninstrument, and those which belong to the image on the retina, now\nappear insignificant in comparison with the incongruities which we\nhave met with in the field of sensation. One might almost believe that\nNature had here contradicted herself on purpose, in order to destroy\nany dream of a pre-existing harmony between the outer and the inner\nworld.\n\n\"And what progress have we made in our task of explaining Sight? It\nmight seem that we are farther off than ever; the riddle only more\ncomplicated, and less hope than ever of finding out the answer. The\nreader may perhaps feel inclined to reproach Science with only knowing\nhow to break up with fruitless criticism the fair world presented to us\nby our senses, in order to annihilate the fragments.\" (p. 269.)\n\nHow triumphant does Idealism now appear! How little trustworthy that\nboasted sense of which mankind have constantly said, \"seeing is\nbelieving,\" although an apostle and philosophers innumerable have put\nthe two in opposition!\n\nPerhaps, however, instead of leading to a \"triumph of Idealism,\" the\nparadoxes and incongruities--in a word, the vast accumulation of the\nUnknowable--belonging to eyesight _considered as a Sensation_, must\nbe allowed to land us on the shore of a far-stretching Scepticism\nillimitable to the mind's eye. And this seems to be the eminent\nwriter's own final opinion.[123] So, too, it will always appear when\nthe case is fairly argued out; and that for the reasons adduced in\nour text. The course of argument there pursued was adopted before the\nProfessor's book came to hand; but we have now added some extracts from\nhis pages in the shape of footnotes, and have given references to other\ninteresting topics touched upon by him.\n\nFor our purpose, however, it is necessary in some degree to disregard\nthe variety of those topics, and fix our attention upon the conclusive\nissue. It is plain, that respecting our senses, as well as our other\nprimary sources of information, the limits of what we can completely\nexplain are very narrow. Yet each for himself and all of us for\nour race must needs every day accept and act upon this limited and\nimperfect kind of knowledge about what most essentially concerns our\nactions as well as our speculations.\n\nSeveral strong examples of such incompleteness are given by\nHelmholtz in his scientific inquiry into the rationale of the\nvisual sense-impressions. We observe, for instance, in his chapter\non Sensation (p. 236 seq.) that all light-waves are the same in\nkind of movement, but differ in size as widely as the ripples on a\nsea-beach (round which happy children play) differ from the vast\nAtlantic ship-engulfing billows sixty or a hundred feet apart. All\nthese undulations are similar in respect of reflection, refraction,\ninterference, diffraction, and polarisation, as well as in their\nproduction of heat.[124] Now, it is the interpretation of such\nmovements into its own language by which our eye gives us the sensation\nof colour. Yet this power of interpretation is curiously limited--it\ndoes not appreciate the gentler ripples of the light-waves--it does\nnot reach to their mightier undulations. Consequently, there may be\ntender colour-delicacies adorning the Universe, completely incognisable\nby us, and there may be also glows and intensities of light-beams\nmagnificently resplendent, and unspeakably grand in tone, of which we\ncan through our visual apparatus form no possible conception. Thus, our\neye translates some waves into a language which we call colour, but\nits scholarship is limited. A certain number of signs it catches and\ninterprets, the rest lie altogether outside its ken. The Sun's softer\nlight-harmonies, and his most awful emanations of beauty remain equally\nunknown.\n\nAnd another limitation has been imposed upon our optical apparatus. For\na perception of heating powers belonging to colour-waves the eye refers\nus to the skin;--and as to their chemical powers we are only just now\ndiscovering the instruments fitted for their true appreciation.\n\nSkilful, too, and yet at the same time very skill-less, is the\ndivination into sunlight given us by our human eyes;--sunlight, that\nis to say, as a general resultant in its whiteness. For, if our eyes,\nkeen and susceptible to us perfect clearness, attempt to analyze white\nlight into its factors and elements, their resolving faculty manifests\nstill more blank inabilities. And they fail also in examining certain\ncolours:--\n\n\"The most striking difference,\" writes Helmholtz, \"between the mixture\nof pigments and that of coloured light is, that while painters make\ngreen by mixing blue and yellow pigments, the union of blue and yellow\nrays of light, produces white.... In general, then, light, which\nconsists of undulations of different wave-lengths, produces different\nimpressions upon our eye, namely, those of different colours. But the\nnumber of hues which we can recognise is much smaller than that of\nthe various possible combinations of rays with different wave-lengths\nwhich external objects can convey to our eyes. The retina cannot\ndistinguish between the white which is produced by the union of scarlet\nand bluish-green light, and that which is composed of yellowish-green\nand violet, or of yellow and ultramarine blue, or of red, green,\nand violet, or of all the colours of the spectrum united. All these\ncombinations appear identically as white; and yet, from a physical\npoint of view, they are very different. In fact, the only resemblance\nbetween the several combinations just mentioned is, that they are\nindistinguishable to the human eye. For instance, a surface illuminated\nwith red and bluish-green light would come out black in a photograph;\nwhile another lighted with yellowish-green and violet would appear\nvery bright, although both surfaces alike seem to the eye to be simply\nwhite. Again, if we successively illuminate coloured objects with white\nbeams of light of various composition, they will appear differently\ncoloured. And whenever we decompose two such beams by a prism, or look\nat them through a coloured glass, the difference between them at once\nbecomes evident.\n\n\"Other colours, also, especially when they are not strongly pronounced,\nmay, like pure white light, be composed of very different mixtures, and\nyet appear indistinguishable to the eye, while in every other property,\nphysical or chemical, they are entirely distinct.\" (pp. 239-241.)\n\nWe may speak of visual Sensation, then, as a _limited_ power of\n_translating_ light. And what relation does visual _Perception_ bear to\nthis Power? Probably the simplest way of expressing it, is to say that\nit is neither more nor less than the _translation of a translation_.\nThe mind thus construes to itself what the visual sense is every moment\nbusied with expressing in its own special language--the interpretation\nof movement, into colour, light and shadow. And from these data--these\ncolours, lights and shadows, the mind draws its own inferences.\n\nNow these inferences thus drawn from preceding Sense\ninferences,--limited in range, as we have seen, and defective in\nanalytic power;--these inferences, such as they are, constitute the\nboasted certainty of eyesight; and of all things apprehended by its\nmeans,--all\n\n    --qu\u00e6 sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus et qu\u00e6\n    Ipse sibi _tradit_ spectator.\n\nIt needs but a statement of the mode in which our final\nmind-interpretations are constructed,--of these translated\ntranslations,--obscure in grammar and imperfect in vocabulary--to\nprove how very difficult is the position of the Realist. In view of\nthis Empire of the Unknowable proclaimed by Science over the surest\nof our perceiving powers, the firmest foundations of our experimental\nknowledge, Helmholtz suggests that his reader \"may feel determined to\nstick fast to the 'sound common sense' of mankind, and believe his own\nsenses more than physiology.\" (p. 270.)\n\nAnd such, no doubt, is the conclusion of the matter to the greater part\nof mankind. But we will in the first place prefer hearing the last word\nof the physiologist. From page 270 to page 313 of his work, he argues\nout the great question of _how_ we perceive under the full impression\nof its vast importance to psychology, metaphysics, and the first\nprinciples upon which all science and all reasonings repose. \"We have,\"\nhe says (p. 281), \"already learned enough to see that the questions\nwhich have here to be decided are of fundamental importance, not only\nfor the physiology of sight, but for a correct understanding of the\ntrue nature and limits of human knowledge generally.\"\n\nThe Physiologist's last word is this--Sense impressions are signs, the\nmeaning of which we learn inductively by a process of self education.\n\"Illusions obviously depend upon mental processes which may be\ndescribed as false inductions.... There appears to me to be in reality\nonly a superficial difference between the 'conclusions' of logicians\nand those inductive conclusions of which we recognise the result in\nthe conceptions we gain of the outer world through our sensations. The\ndifference chiefly depends upon the former conclusions being capable\nof expression in words, while the latter are not; because, instead of\nwords, they only deal with sensations and the memory of sensations.\nIndeed, it is just the impossibility of describing sensations, whether\nactual or remembered, in words, which makes it so difficult to discuss\nthis department of psychology at all.\" (pp. 307, 8.) And again (p.\n314), \"There is a most striking analogy between the entire range of\nprocesses which we have been discussing, and another System of Signs,\nwhich is not given by nature but arbitrarily chosen, and which must\nundoubtedly be learned before it is understood. I mean the words of our\nmother tongue.\n\n\"Learning how to speak is obviously a much more difficult task than\nacquiring a foreign language in after-life. First, the child has\nto guess that the sounds it hears are intended to be signs at all;\nnext, the meaning of each separate sound must be found out, by the\nsame kind of induction as the meaning of the sensations of sight or\ntouch; and yet we see children by the end of their first year already\nunderstanding certain words and phrases, even if they are not yet able\nto repeat them. We may sometimes observe the same in dogs.\n\n\"Now this connection between Names and Objects, which demonstrably\nmust be _learnt_, becomes just as firm and indestructible as that\nbetween Sensations and the Objects which produce them. We cannot help\nthinking of the usual signification of a word, even when it is used\nexceptionally in some other sense; we cannot help feeling the mental\nemotions which a fictitious narrative calls forth, even when we know\nthat it is not true; just in the same way as we cannot get rid of the\nnormal signification of the sensations produced by any illusion of the\nsenses, even when we know that they are not real.\n\n\"There is one other point of comparison which is worth notice. The\nelementary signs of language are only twenty-six letters, and yet what\nwonderfully varied meanings can we express and communicate by their\ncombination! Consider, in comparison with this, the enormous number of\nelementary signs with which the machinery of sight is provided. We may\ntake the number of fibres in the optic nerves as two hundred and fifty\nthousand. Each of these is capable of innumerable different degrees of\nsensation of one, two, or three primary colours. It follows that it is\npossible to construct an immeasurably greater number of combinations\nhere than with the few letters which build up our words. Nor must we\nforget the extremely rapid changes of which the images of sight are\ncapable. No wonder, then, if our senses speak to us in language which\ncan express far more delicate distinctions and richer varieties than\ncan be conveyed by words.\"\n\nFinally (pp. 315, 16), \"The correspondence, therefore, between the\nexternal world and the Perceptions of Sight rests, either in whole or\nin part, upon the same foundation as all our knowledge of the actual\nworld,--on _experience_, and on constant _verification_ of its accuracy\nby experiments which we perform with every movement of our body. It\nfollows, of course, that we are only warranted in accepting the reality\nof this correspondence so far as these means of verification extend,\nwhich is really as far as for practical purposes we need.\n\n\"Beyond these limits, as, for example, in the region of Qualities,\nwe are in some instances able to prove conclusively that there is no\ncorrespondence at all between sensations and their objects.\n\n\"Only the relations of time, of space, of equality, and those which\nare derived from them, of number, size, regularity of co-existence and\nof sequence--'mathematical relations' in short, are common to the\nouter and the inner world, and here we may indeed look for a complete\ncorrespondence between our conceptions and the objects which excite\nthem.\n\n\"But it seems to me that we should not quarrel with the bounty of\nnature because the greatness, and also the emptiness, of these abstract\nrelations have been concealed from us by the manifold brilliance of a\nsystem of signs; since thus they can be the more easily surveyed and\nused for practical ends, while yet traces enough remain visible to\nguide the philosophical spirit aright, in its search after the meaning\nof sensible Images and Signs.\"\n\nLet therefore this account of visual Perception be accepted by us,\nas it will probably be by three-fourths of scientific men throughout\nEurope. And, next, let us ask, as every real thinker will proceed to\nask, on _what_ grounds of _certitude_ rests our assurance as regards\nthe daily and hourly information received through this avenue of\nperception, reasoned and acted upon with unswerving confidence by us\nall?\n\nFor an examination of the ground principle of Induction, the reader\nmust be referred to our next chapter. But it is at once clear that no\nhuman _experience_ can possess the attribute of universality, otherwise\nit would cease to be human. We have then in this present appeal to the\nveracity of Experience, no _absolute_ knowledge to deal with, only\nknowledge as relative to mankind. Nay, we must go a little further\nstill in our limitation, and say to the _generality_ of mankind. For\nour eyes do not all see perfectly alike--a North-American Indian sees\nwhat a Cockney cannot discover; the trained eye discerns differently\nfrom the untrained. On the differences of power in eye and ear rest the\ndifferences in many kinds of theorising--amongst which art-perceptions\nyield an obvious and familiar set of examples. And if we try for a\nmore precise estimate of the value of our limited human relativity,\nand proceed by way of comparison between _our own_ diverse endowments,\nwho shall venture to say that the eye of our body interpreted by our\nunderstanding, tells our inmost self more truly than the eye of our\nhuman soul, informing us directly of the facts of its intuitive vision?\nSo far as our actual means of valuing these two modes of beholding can\ngo, there is no knowledge so perfect as the product of pure intuition,\nthe glorious fabric of Mathematical Science. And to pure Science it\nmatters not whether the requisite Schematism is drawn upon a sheet\nof white paper or on the clear tablet of the imagining faculty of a\nphilosopher. The purely inward view is in truth generally the farthest\nreaching, and the most unclouded. When, therefore, it is, and has been\nfor centuries, apparent to the inmost eye of the generality of our race\nthat there _really_ exists a spiritual world within themselves--above\nthem, and in the far distant future beyond us all, permanent while\nwe change, and the evidence of our own ultimate permanency,--such\nknowledge may undeniably be human, the very flower and distinction of\nour human nature; and it may on that account be received by us as true.\n\nIf, again, our ordinary human soul is so far a Christian as to exclaim\nwith Tertullian, \"O good God,\" by what logical process shall we confute\nits utterance, while we maintain the utterance of our commonest\nsense-perceptions?\n\nThat we all see in frames, that we all think in frames, no rational\nthinker or perceiver will deny. If, however, any of us chooses to be\nan Idealist or Nihilist, let him at least be consistent;--if he will\nassert the necessity of Doubt, let him maintain its empire by doubting\nhis own assertion. But let no man think that Doubt leads him any\nwhither except to an abnegation of thought, a mistrust alike of Sense\nand Soul, and an abdication of every human prerogative:--\n\n    \"Thy hand, great Anarch, lets the curtain fall,\n    And universal Darkness buries all.\"\n\nSo sang the witty rhymer, but we may add in prose that Doubt if\nthoroughly real, invariably commits suicide, and becomes first\ndoubtful, after that, a non-entity at last.\n\n\nC.--HELMHOLTZ ON SPECIALTIES OF SENSIBILITY.\n\nThe following passages from this interesting writer will be found in\nhis Chapter \"on the Sensations of Sight,\" between pp. 232 and 236. They\nwill, it is hoped, be thoroughly intelligible if read in connection\nwith the part of our last Chapter (pp. 158, 9) where a reference to\nthis note was made.\n\n\"The nerve-fibres have been often compared with telegraphic wires\ntraversing a country, and the comparison is well fitted to illustrate\nthis striking and important peculiarity of their mode of action. In\nthe network of telegraphs we find everywhere the same copper or iron\nwires carrying the same kind of movement, a stream of electricity,\nbut producing the most different results in the various stations\naccording to the auxiliary apparatus with which they are connected. At\none station the effect is the ringing of a bell, at another a signal\nis moved, and at a third a recording instrument is set to work....\nNerve-fibres and telegraphic wires are equally striking examples to\nillustrate the doctrine that the same causes may, under different\nconditions, produce different results.... As motor nerves, when\nirritated, produce movement, because they are connected with muscles,\nand glandular nerves secretion, because they lead to glands, so do\nsensitive nerves, when they are irritated, produce sensation, because\nthey are connected with sensitive organs.... Whether by the irritation\nof a nerve we produce a muscular movement, a secretion or a sensation\ndepends upon whether we are handling a motor, a glandular, or a\nsensitive nerve, and not at all upon what means of irritation we may\nuse. It may be an electrical shock, or tearing the nerve, or cutting\nit through, or moistening it with a solution of salt, or touching it\nwith a hot wire. In the same way (and this great step in advance was\ndue to Johannes M\u00fcller) the _kind_ of sensation which will ensue when\nwe irritate a sensitive nerve, whether an impression of light, or of\nsound, or of feeling, or of smell, or of taste, will be produced,\ndepends entirely upon which sense the excited nerve subserves, and not\nat all upon the method of excitation we adopt.\n\n\"Let us now apply this to the optic nerve, which is the object of\nour present enquiry. In the first place, we know that no kind of\naction upon any part of the body except the eye and the nerve which\nbelongs to it, can ever produce the sensation of light. The stories\nof somnambulists, which are the only arguments that can be adduced\nagainst this belief, we may be allowed to disbelieve. But, on the other\nhand, it is not light alone which can produce the sensation of light\nupon the eye, but also any other power which can excite the optic\nnerve. If the weakest electrical currents are passed through the eye\nthey produce flashes of light. A blow, or even a slight pressure made\nupon the side of the eyeball with the finger, makes an impression of\nlight in the darkest room, and, under favourable circumstances, this\nmay become intense. In these cases it is important to remember that\nthere is no objective light produced in the retina, as some of the\nolder physiologists assumed, for the sensation of light may be so\nstrong that a second observer could not fail to see through the pupil\nthe illumination of the retina which would follow, if the sensation\nwere really produced by an actual development of light within the eye.\nBut nothing of the sort has ever been seen. Pressure or the electric\ncurrent excites the optic nerve, and therefore, according to M\u00fcller's\nlaw, a sensation of light results, but under these circumstances, at\nleast, there is not the smallest spark of actual light.\n\n\"In the same way, increased pressure of blood, its abnormal\nconstitution in fevers, or its contamination with intoxicating or\nnarcotic drugs, can produce sensations of light to which no actual\nlight corresponds. Even in cases in which an eye is entirely lost by\naccident or by an operation, the irritation of the stump of the optic\nnerve while it is healing is capable of producing similar subjective\neffects. It follows from these facts that the peculiarity in kind\nwhich distinguishes the sensation of light from all others, does not\ndepend upon any peculiar qualities of light itself. Every action which\nis capable of exciting the optic nerve is capable of producing the\nimpression of light; and the purely subjective sensation thus produced\nis so precisely similar to that caused by external light, that persons\nunacquainted with these phenomena readily suppose that the rays they\nsee are real objective beams.\n\n\"Thus we see that external light produces no other effects in the optic\nnerve than other agents of an entirely different nature. In one respect\nonly does light differ from the other causes which are capable of\nexciting this nerve: namely, that the retina, being placed at the back\nof the firm globe of the eye, and further protected by the bony orbit,\nis almost entirely withdrawn from other exciting agents, and is thus\nonly exceptionally affected by them, while it is continually receiving\nthe rays of light which stream in upon it through the transparent media\nof the eye.\n\n\"On the other hand, the optic nerve, by reason of the peculiar\nstructures in connection with the ends of its fibres, the rods and\ncones of the retina, is incomparably more sensitive to rays of light\nthan any other nervous apparatus of the body, since the rest can only\nbe affected by rays which are concentrated enough to produce noticeable\nelevation of temperature.\n\n\"This explains why the sensations of the optic nerve are for us the\nordinary sensible sign of the presence of light in the field of vision,\nand why we always connect the sensation of light with light itself,\neven where they are really unconnected. But we must never forget that\na survey of all the facts in their natural connection puts it beyond\ndoubt that external light is only _one_ of the exciting causes capable\nof bringing the optic nerve into functional activity, and therefore\nthat there is no exclusive relation between the sensation of light and\nlight itself.\"\n\nSome of the quotations just made direct attention to illusions of\nSight which (as we have seen in our last note) Helmholtz elsewhere\ncalls \"false inductions.\" Now one curious fact relative to these\nimpressions is that in many instances the objective consequent is due\nto a subjective antecedent. Some readers may like to peruse a short\naccount of five variously caused sight-illusions taken from an Oration\non _Positivism_ delivered by the present writer at St. George's Hall in\nMay 1871. The particulars here given of the fifth illusion should be\ncompared with the foot-note on page 158 _ante_.\n\n\"I will mention five instances in which people believe they see\nsomething, and do not see it; in other words, the objective antecedent\nis wanting, and the impression is produced partly by the sensory\napparatus, partly by the mind itself. As I describe these instances\none by one, let my hearers ask themselves, How does this illusion come\nabout? Is it produced by our optic instrument or by our mental activity?\n\n\"First, then, Take a lighted stick, and whirl it rapidly round and\nround. You believe you see a circle of sparks--in reality it is no more\nthan a simple train, and on a like illusion the Catherine-wheel is\nconstructed. Again, put yourself in the hands of an optically inclined\nfriend, and let him operate upon you thus. He shall place a cardboard\ndown the middle axis of your face, quite close against your nose--one\nside of his board, say the right, coloured a brilliant red, the left\na vivid green. After an instant or two let him suddenly substitute\nanother board, white on both sides. Do my young friends guess what will\nfollow? Your right eye will see green, your left red--the reverse of\nwhat they saw before; yet neither will see correctly, for both eyes are\nlooking at uncoloured surfaces.\n\n\"Thirdly, Watch the full moon rising--how large and round she looks,\nresting as it were upon that eastern hill, and seen amidst the tops of\nits forest trees! How much larger and broader than when she hangs aloft\nin upper sky! Has every one here learned the true reason why? If not,\nlook at her through a slit in a card, and her diameter will be the same.\n\n\"Fourthly, A schoolboy is crossing his bedroom in the deep dark night,\nanxiously hoping that his head may not come into collision with the\nbed-post. Though carefully and successfully avoiding it, he imagines of\na sudden that the blow is imminent. Quick as thought he stops to save\nhis head, and, behold, the room is as quickly filled with sparks or\nflames of fire. Another moment, and all becomes dark once more. I have\nheard many a schoolboy exclaim over this phenomenon, but never knew\none who could explain it. Finally, did you ever, on opening your eyes\nin a morning, close them quickly again, and keep them shut, directing\nthem as if to look straight forwards? Most persons of active nervous\npower, after a few trials--say a dozen, or a score--are surprised to\nsee colours appear and flit before the sight. Some years ago, Germany's\ngreatest poet tried, at the suggestion of her greatest physiologist,\na series of experiments on these coloured images. He found that\nby an effort of will he could cause them to come and go, govern\ntheir movement, march, and succession. And this took place under no\nconditions of impaired sensation, nor any hallucination of a diseased\nmind. A thoroughly healthy will succeeded in impressing itself upon\nphysical instruments, controlling their law, and creating at its own\npleasure an unfailingly bright phantasmagoria.\n\n\"Some here may, others may not, have apprehended the distinctions\nbetween our five cases. The first two are due to the sensory apparatus,\nits optical laws of continued impression and complementary colour.\nIn the latter three, mind intervenes. The enlarged size of the moon\noccurs through rapid comparison, the fiery lights in a dark room\nthrough instinctive apprehension, both influences of mind on the\nsensory system. The fifth and most interesting of all is no bad\nexample of interference between moral and material law. The will truly\ncausative (you may remark) overrules the natural process of physical\nimpression, alters it, and creates a designed effect. I wish I could\ninduce my young friends to devise a number of experiments on similar\nmixed cases, and, having tried them, to dissect out their real laws.\nThese sharpenings of the critical faculty are exceedingly useful--they\ncultivate clearness; and most people know that two-thirds among our\nmistakes in life are caused by confusion of thought.\n\n\"Besides all other uses, such lessons teach at once the necessity, as\nwe said before, of observing your own observations. And as, first, the\nreal witness of every observation is our mind; every fact which comes\nthrough our bodily senses being to us a mental impression, it seems\nbut common sense to hear above all things what mind has to say for and\nabout itself. Then, secondly, where would be the benefit derived from\nour observations, if we could not reason upon them, or could place no\nconfidence in our own reasonings? Yet the art of reasoning is so purely\na mental process, that it can be represented by symbols as abstract\nand free from material meaning as if they were bare algebraic signs.\nThirdly, in the most accurate of sciences mind extends our knowledge\nfar beyond the circle of observation, and gives us axiomatic assurance\nof its own accuracy. Who ever saw, or ever can see, all straight lines\nin all conceivable positions, yet who doubts that throughout the whole\nuniverse no two straight lines ever did inclose or can inclose a space?\nAnd, fourthly, can it be a matter of indifference to any of us what\nevidence the mind offers concerning its own moral nature, and what is\nthe value of that evidence, and the laws deducible therefrom? How true\nit thus appears that 'know thyself' lies at the root of all knowledge,\nand that the man who receives no witness from within can know nothing\nas he ought to know it!\"\n\n\nD.--POPULAR ACCOUNT OF PURE IDEALISM WITH CRITICAL REMARKS.\n\n\"A classification of systems of philosophy according to the\ncosmological conceptions governing them has actually been made. It is\nfounded on a consideration of the differences among philosophers as to\nwhat that totality of existence is which is to be accepted as really\nvouched for by Mind. All agree, as we have said, that Mind is the sole\nvoucher for anything; but philosophers are divisible into schools\naccording to the various views they have taken of the constitution of\nthat phenomenal Universe, that Cosmos, that total round of things,\nof which we have a recurring assurance in every act of perception,\nand which is orbed forth more or less fully for each man in his wider\ncontemplations.\n\n\"The popular or habitual conception of mankind in general is that there\nare two distinct worlds mixed up in the phenomenal Cosmos--a world\nof Mind, consisting of multitudes of individual minds, and a world\nof Matter, consisting of all the extended immensity and variety of\nmaterial objects. Neither of these worlds is thought of as begotten of\nthe other, but each of them as existing independently in its own proper\nnature and within its own definite bounds, though they traffic with\neach other at present. Sweep away all existing minds, and the deserted\nEarth would continue to spin round all the same, still whirling its\nrocks, trees, clouds, and all the rest of its material pomp and\ngarniture, alternately in the sunshine and in the depths of the starry\nstillness. Though no eye should behold, and no ear should hear, there\nwould be evenings of silver moonlight on the ocean-marge, and the waves\nwould roar as they broke and retired. On the other hand, suppose the\nentire fabric of the material Universe abolished and dissolved, and\nthe dishoused population of spirits would still somehow survive in the\nimaginable vacancy. If this second notion is not so easy or common as\nthe first, it still virtually belongs to the popular conception of the\ncontents or constitution of the Cosmos. The conception is that of a\nNatural Dualism, or of the contact in every act of perception of two\ndistinct spheres, one an internal perceiving mind, and the other an\nexternal world composed of the actual and identical objects which this\nmind perceives.\n\n\"On the first exercise of philosophic thought, however, this conception\nis blurred. An immense quantity of what we all instinctively think of\nas really existing out of ourselves turns out, on investigation, not to\nexist at all as we fancy it existing, but to consist only of affections\nof the perceiving mind. The redness of the rose is not a real external\nthing, immutably the same in itself; it is only a certain peculiar\naction on my physiology which the presence of an external cause or\nobject seems to determine. Were my physiology different, the action\nwould be different, though the cause or object remained the same.\nIndeed, there _are_ persons in whom the presence of a rose occasions\nno sensation of redness such as is known to me, but a much vaguer\nsensation, not distinguishable from what I should at once distinguish\nas greenness. And, as colour is thus at once detected as no external\nindependently-existing reality, but only a recurring physiological\naffection of myself and other sentient beings like myself, so with\na thousand other things which, by habit or instinct, I suppose as\nexternally and independently existing. When I imagine the depopulated\nEarth still wheeling its inanimate rotundity through the daily sunshine\nand the nocturnal shadow, or one of its bays still resonant in moonlit\nevenings with the roar of the breaking waves, it is because, in spite\nof myself, I intrude into the fancy the supposition of a listening\near, and a beholding eye analogous to my own. It is only by a strong\neffort that I can realize that a great deal at least of what I thus\nthink of as the goings-on of things by themselves is not and cannot be\ntheir goings-on by themselves, but consists at the utmost of effects\ninterbred between them and a particular sentiency in the midst of them.\nBut the effort may be made; and, when it is made repeatedly, in a great\nmany directions, and with reference to a great many of the so-called\nproperties of matter, the inevitable result for the philosophic mind is\nthat the popularly-imagined substance of a real external world finds\nitself eaten away or corroded, at least to a certain depth. So far\nphilosophers are agreed. It is when they proceed to consider to _what_\ndepth the popularly-imagined substance of the real external world is\nthus eaten away, or accounted for, that they begin to differ.\n\n\"Some philosophers, departing as little as may be from the popular\njudgment, suppose that, however much of the apparent external world may\nbe resolved into affections of the subjective sentiency, there still\nremains an objective residue of such primary qualities as extension,\nfigure, divisibility, mobility, etc., belonging to external matter\nitself, and by the direct and immediate cognizance of which the mind is\nbrought face to face with external substance, and knows something of\nits real goings-on. Philosophers of this school are known generally as\nREALISTS. More numerous, however, are those who, not allowing\nan objective and independent reality even to the so-called primary\nqualities of matter, but believing them as well as colour, odour, or\nsavour, to be only affections of the sentiency, deny that the mind is\nin any sense brought face to face with real external things such as\nthey seem in the act of perception. To thinkers of this school there\nhas been given the general name of IDEALISTS. This broad\ndistinction of Philosophers cosmologically into REALISTS and\nIDEALISTS is so far convenient enough. Cosmologically, or in\nrespect of this present Universe of ours, with its dualism of Mind\nand Matter, every man must declare himself either a REALIST\nor an IDEALIST, if he understands the meanings attached to\nthese terms. The distinction has reference solely to his notion of the\nso-called external or material world in its relations to the perceiving\nmind. If he abides, though only in part, by the popular conception,\nand regards the material world as a substantial reality independent\nof the perceiving mind, and which the mind, according to its powers,\npresses against and directly apprehends in every act of perception,\nthen he is a REALIST. If, on the other hand, he cannot see\nthat there need be asserted any external material world with such\ncharacters as we attribute to it, but supposes that our unanimous\nagreement in the imagination of such an external world is merely a\nhabit of our own sentiency, projecting its own ideas or affections\noutwards, and giving them a body, then he is an IDEALIST.\"\nMasson, \"_Recent British Philosophy_,\" pp. 58-64. Again p. 69, seq.,\n\"There is the system of _Constructive Idealism_. It may be so called to\ndistinguish it from the more developed and extreme Idealism presently\nto be spoken of. According to this system, we do not perceive the\nreal external world immediately, but only mediately--that is, the\nobjects which we take as the things actually perceived are not the\nreal objects at all, but only vicarious assurances, representatives,\nor nuntii of real unknown objects. The hills, the rocks, the trees,\nthe stars, all the choir of heaven and earth, are not, in any of\ntheir qualities, primary, secondary, or whatever we choose to call\nthem, the actual existences out of us, but only the addresses of a\n'something' to our physiology, or eductions by our physiology out of a\n'something.' They are all Thoughts or Ideas, with only this peculiarity\ninvolved in them, that they will not rest in themselves, but compel\na reference to objects out of self, with which, by some arrangement\nor other, they stand in relation. Difficult as this system may be to\nunderstand, and violently as it wrenches the popular common sense, it\nis yet the system into which the great majority of philosophers in\nall ages and countries hitherto are seen, more or less distinctly,\nto have been carried by their speculations. While the Natural\nRealists among philosophers have been very few, and even these have\nbeen Realists in a sense unintelligible to the popular mind, quite a\nhost of philosophers have been Constructive Idealists. These might be\nfarther subdivided according to particular variations in the form of\ntheir Idealism. Thus, there have been many Constructive Idealists who\nhave regarded the objects rising to the mind in external perception,\nand taken to be representative of real unknown objects, as something\nmore than modifications of the mind itself--as having their origin\nwithout. Among these have been reckoned Malebranche, Berkeley, Clarke,\nSir Isaac Newton, Tucker, and possibly Locke. But there have been\nother Constructive Idealists, who have supposed the objects rising\nin the mind in external perception to be only modifications of the\nmind itself, but yet, by some arrangement, vicarious of real unknown\nobjects, and intimating their existence. Among such have been reckoned\nDescartes, Leibnitz, Condillac, Kant, and most Platonists. The general\nname 'Idealists' it will be seen properly enough includes both the\nclasses as distinct from the Natural Realists, inasmuch as both classes\nhold that what the mind is directly cognizant of in external perception\nis only ideas. But, inasmuch as these ideas are held by both classes,\nthough under divers hypotheses, to refer to real existences beyond\nthemselves, and distinct from the perceiving mind, the thinkers in\nquestion may also properly enough be called Realists or Dualists,\nthough not 'Natural' Realists or Dualists. They occupy a midway place\nbetween the Natural Realists and the philosophers next to be mentioned.\n\n\"There is the system of _Pure Idealism_, which abolishes matter as\na distinct or independent existence in any sense, and resolves it\ncompletely into mind. Though this system is named in the scheme, for\nthe sake of symmetry, and as the exact antithesis to Materialism, it is\ndifficult to cite representatives that could be certainly discriminated\nfrom the merely Constructive Idealists just mentioned on the one hand,\nand from the school of philosophers next following on the other. Fichte\nis, perhaps, the purest example.\" _Ibid._ pp. 69-72.\n\nFor perfect clearness we must put together two other passages from\nProfessor Masson's interesting volume:--\n\n\"There is the system of _Nihilism_, or, as it may be better called,\n_Non-Substantialism_. According to this system, the Ph\u00e6nomenal Cosmos,\nwhether regarded as consisting of two parallel successions of ph\u00e6nomena\n(Mind and Matter), or of only one (Mind or Matter), resolves itself,\non analysis, into an absolute Nothingness,--mere appearances with\nno credible substratum of Reality; a play of phantasms in a void.\nIf there have been no positive or dogmatic Nihilists, yet both Hume\nfor one purpose, and Fichte for another, have propounded Nihilism as\nthe ultimate issue of all reasoning that does not start with some _\u00e0\npriori_ postulate.\" Masson, \"_Recent British Philosophy_,\" p. 66....\nIf any one could assert \"There is no Absolute,\" surely it might be the\nNihilist, who has analysed away both Matter and Thought, and attenuated\nthe Cosmos into vapour and non-significance. Yet, from the abyss of a\nspeculatively reasoned Nihilism more void than Hume's, Fichte returned,\nby a convulsive act of soul,--which he termed _faith_--an intense, a\nburning, a blazing Ontologist. _Ibid._ p. 81.\"[125]\n\nThis is certainly an eloquent account of philosophic Idealism as it may\nin its various phases be represented to the world of general readers.\nIt turns, as every such speculation must turn, on the great principle,\nthat our Sensations are so many series of signs and symbols.[126] They\nmay be preordained, and our apprehension of them innate;--they may be\narbitrary, and their interpretation the work of man's intelligence. To\ndecide this question, is to decide something as to the extent of their\n_relativity_; but will any one pronounce their information absolutely\ntrue?\n\nAt this point occurs a wide divergence between two great schools of\nIdealism--the Psychological, and the Theological thinkers. These\nschools inosculate in respect of some of their arguments, and of their\nobjections against ordinary modes of thought. They disagree, however,\nin their aims--the ports at which they land themselves and their\ndisciples.\n\nPsychological Idealism is best known to most readers through Mr. J.\nS. Mill. The Theological view, so far as this country goes, seems\nto have made scant progress beyond Berkeley and a few of his clever\nfollowers. For ordinary Englishmen, a reference to continental writers\non this question seems useless;--Theology being discussed by them in\nso _ab extr\u00e2_ a manner as to put them out of court with even the most\nmetaphysical of our theologians.\n\nRegarding the subject in a psychological light, Mr. O'Hanlon made\nthe following common-sense remarks amongst others of a more abstract\nnature:[127]--\n\n\"To come now to Mr. Mill's Idealism. He, as all the world of thinkers\nknows, following the steps of Berkeley and Hume, claims, by means of\nhis power of analysis, and by the aid of the formidable psychological\ninstrument furnished him by the doctrine of the Association of Ideas,\nto have got rid of all other existences save and except states of\nconsciousness, actual and possible.... I propose to try and answer his\narguments\" (_i.e._ within certain expressed limitations)--\n\n \"Let A = all my sensations.\n\n   \"  B = the group of sensations and of permanent possibilities of\n sensation I call my body.\n\n   \"  C = the group of permanent possibilities of sensation I call my\n friend Smith.\n\n\"Now I find B always related to A in a very peculiar manner. B has\nin perpetual conjunction with it a long series of manifold states of\nconsciousness, A. C resembles B in very many particulars, but it is\nnot so related to A. I hence conclude, if I follow Mr. Mill, that C is\nso related to some other A, that is, to some other consciousness. In\ndrawing this conclusion, in extending to C, which so closely resembles\nB, my experience of B, I, according to Mr. Mill, do but extend the\nprinciples of inductive evidence, which experience shews hold good of\nmy states of consciousness, to _a sphere without my consciousness_.\"\n\nThe italicized words sound simple enough to the ordinary reader, but\nargument upon them involves (as Mr. O'Hanlon observes) two serious\npostulates. \"(a) That there is a sphere beyond my consciousness;\nthe very thing to be proved, (b) That the laws, which obtain in my\nconsciousness, also obtain in the sphere beyond it.\" But;--\n\n\"'Such an inference'\" he goes on to quote from Mill \"'would only\nbe warrantable if we could know _\u00e0 priori_ that we must have been\ncreated capable of conceiving whatever is capable of existing: that\nthe universe of thought and that of reality, the microcosm and the\nmacrocosm (as they once were called) must have been framed in complete\ncorrespondence with one another. That this is really the case has been\nlaid down expressly by some systems of philosophy, by implication in\nmore, and is the foundation (among others) of the systems of Schelling\nand Hegel; but _an assumption_ more destitute of evidence could\nscarcely be made, nor can one easily imagine any evidence that could\nprove it unless it were revealed from above.'\" Mill on Hamilton, chap.\nVI. p. 65.\n\nThe reader will probably see at once where the abstract difficulty\nlies, and how it runs up into the higher metaphysics.\n\nNow, as Mr. O'Hanlon puts the case, taking all this for granted;\n\n\"A boy cuts his finger and screams.... Yet if I was not by, the boy,\nthe knife, the blood, the scream, would only exist potentially.\"\n\nOr on the other hand if I sacrifice consistency and substitute\n'actually' for 'potentially,' \"I thereby reject the validity of the\nPsychological method\" which asserts \"that the belief in an external\ncause of our sensations\" is not original but \"generated 'so early as to\nhave become inseparable from our consciousness before the time at which\nmemory commences.'... Nevertheless, it afterwards admits that the\nbelief in the case of persons, has an external cause. Hereby the method\ncommits suicide, falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus.\"\n\nFinally, he remarks, \"the psychological method professes very little\nregard for our natural beliefs. Now I can, by a vigorous effort, regard\nmatter as mere states or possible states of my consciousness (at least\nI can do so for the moment), but I can also look on other persons in\nthe same light. Why should one natural belief be treated more tenderly\nthan another?... In short, if I refuse to postulate a _non ego_, and if\nI hold that, supposing the states of consciousness I call the _ego_ can\nbe shewn capable of producing the notion of the _non ego_, then they\ndid produce it, and if I hold that they can be shewn to be so capable,\nsuch a theory is equally applicable to external consciousnesses as to\nexternal matter. In both cases, I cannot get out of the sphere of my\nown feelings; there may be something beyond or there may not, but if\nthere is, it is at all events incognisable by me, and to all intents\nand purposes I am alone in the universe.\"[128]\n\nIn drift and true meaning Bishop Berkeley's Idealism differed _toto\nc\u00e6lo_ from Mill's, as well as from Hume's idealistic Scepticism. His\nbelief in a world outside us all was as firm as that of the firmest\nRealist, and by a world outside us he meant a world which neither\nwe nor our conceptions can alter. His reasoning was also of the most\ncommon-sense description. Sensation is (as before said) a _sign_\nbetween us and things outside. But the sign tells us nothing of any\n_substratum_ on which the things signified depend for their sign-giving\npowers. Matter (as commonly understood[129]) is a figment devised by\ncertain philosophers;--the true subsistence of the outward world is in\nand for mind, and apart from thought it does not subsist at all. But\nmy mind, nay the human mind, is limited. There is One whose thoughts\nare not as our thoughts;--in Him the world subsists, and in Him we\nalso have our Being continually. The world is what it is to us, in and\nthrough Him, and it appeals not to our so-called material frames but to\nour minds.\n\nBerkeley's argument was simply this. Take away gross matter--and the\nworld is still perfectly Real. It is real because God is real. Real for\nus, real in Him; and by this we _know_ His Reality.[130]\n\nBy comparing this phase of Idealism with the modern doctrine of what is\ncalled the \"Conditioned,\" its Theological interest becomes still more\nobvious. Suppose we naturally know only what is conditioned (_i.e._\ndependent on some Absolute reality to us unknown), what ought, asks Dr.\nMansel, to be the inference? The right inference is that the Divine\nAbsolute did not leave our world in ignorance, but did really reveal\nHimself to Man.\n\nThe fate of arguments framed in special interests, however noble those\ninterests may be, is usually the same. Some clever antagonist allows\ntheir destructive force, but refuses their affirmative conclusions.\nBerkeley's denial of the unknown substratum called matter was approved\nby sceptics, who scoffed at his unknown God. His idealism was\npronounced unanswerable, his divinity needed no answer. Therefore,\nthe Reason remained without satisfaction of any kind, \"Most of the\nwritings\" says Hume \"of that very ingenious author form the best\nlessons of scepticism which are to be found either among the ancient\nor modern philosophers, Bayle not excepted. He professes, however, in\nhis title-page (and undoubtedly with great truth,) to have composed\nhis book against the sceptics as well as against the atheists and\nfreethinkers. But that all his arguments, though otherwise intended,\nare, in reality, merely sceptical, appears from this, _that they\nadmit of no answer, and produce no conviction_.\" (_Inquiry concerning\nthe Human Understanding._ Section XII.) And be it remarked that this\nfinal clause forms a skilled definition of Scepticism--its essential\nnotion--given by an expert. Dean Mansel himself who left at his death\nan unfinished article upon Berkeley, suffered under a charge of\npromoting what he desired to discourage. So dangerous is it to deal\nwith wide questions by narrowing their sweep to a point; yet on the\nother hand how few students are prepared to read and think widely?\n\nShall we attribute to a growing width of Thought, the increased breadth\nof view under which Idealism has of late years been represented? The\nGerman Philosopher, with whom Schwegler closes his philosophic history\nwrites \"This ideality or non-substantiality of the finite is the\nchief maxim of philosophy; and for that reason every true philosophy\nis idealistic\" (Idealismus).[131] In England Mr. Green of Balliol\nsignalises Berkeley's \"true proposition--there is nothing real apart\nfrom thought--\" and carefully distinguishes it from the one so often\nsubstituted for it--the fatal flaw of the Berkeleian argument.[132]\nAnother influential thinker, Mr. Herbert Spencer,--who, like Professor\nHuxley, uses materialistic symbols treating them as symbols only,--has\nbeen for some time labouring after a \"reconciliation of Realism and\nIdealism,\" which again is considered by an able critic, Mr. Henry\nSidgwick, \"an impossible compromise.\"--Mr. Spencer's answer to Mr.\nSidgwick, on this particular point, will be found in his recently\npublished volume of \"Essays\" (III. 282 seq.). A very instructive\nsentence occurs on p. 290. \"Should it be said that this regarding of\neverything constituting experience and thought as symbolic, has a very\nshadowy aspect; I reply that these which I speak of as symbols, are\nreal relatively to our consciousness; and are symbolic only in their\nrelation to the Ultimate Reality.\"\n\nSo much then for a question which in a variety of shapes has exercised\nthe human intellect throughout countless generations, and in all\ncountries from India to the United States. It has also pervaded\nall spheres of Thought from physical science, (on which compare\nfurther, Additional Note I., and our next chapter), to the great\nphilosophico-theological domain as we have already seen in certain\nspecimens of Western thought. It would be easy to illustrate its empire\nfar more extensively from those wonderful Eastern systems brought\nhome to English readers thirty-six years ago by the translation of\nRitters' Ancient Philosophy, but very imperfectly comprehended even\nnow, notwithstanding the agreeable reception which Professor Max M\u00fcller\nhas provided for them. To his writings we will gladly refer the curious\nstudent.\n\n\nE.--ON THE RELATIONS OF FACT AND THEORY.\n\n\"The distinction between Theory (that is, true Theory) and Fact is\nthis: that in Theory the Ideas are considered as distinct from the\nFacts: in Facts, though Ideas may be involved, they are not, in our\napprehension, separated from the sensations. In a Fact, the Ideas are\napplied so readily and familiarly, and incorporated with the sensations\nso entirely, that we do not see _them_, we see _through them_. A person\nwho carefully notes the motion of a star all night, sees the circle\nwhich it describes as he sees the star, though the circle is, in fact a\nresult of his own Ideas. A person who has in his mind the measures of\ndifferent lines and countries on the earth's surface, and who can put\nthem together into one conception, finds that they can make no figure\nbut a globular one: to him, the earth's globular form is a Fact, as\nmuch as the square form of his chamber. A person to whom the grounds\nof believing the earth to travel round the sun are as familiar as\nthe grounds for believing the movements of the mail coaches in this\ncountry, looks upon the former event as a Fact, just as he looks\nupon the latter events as Facts. And a person who, knowing the Fact\nof the earth's annual motion, refers it distinctly to its mechanical\ncause, conceives the sun's attraction as a Fact, just as he conceives\nas a Fact, the action of the wind which turns the sails of a mill. He\ncannot _see_ the force in either case; he supplies it out of his own\nIdeas. And thus, a true Theory is a Fact; a Fact is a familiar Theory.\nThat which is a Fact under one aspect, is a Theory under another.\nThe most recondite Theories when firmly established are Facts; the\nsimplest Facts involve something of the nature of Theory. Theory and\nFact correspond, in a certain degree, with Ideas and Sensations, as to\nthe nature of their opposition. But the Facts are Facts, so far as the\nIdeas have been combined with the Sensations and absorbed in them: the\nTheories are Theories, so far as the Ideas are kept distinct from the\nSensations, and so far as it is considered still a question whether\nthose can be made to agree with these.\n\n\"We may, as I have said, illustrate this matter by considering man as\n_interpreting_ the phenomena which he sees. He often interprets without\nbeing aware that he does so. Thus when we see the needle move towards\nthe magnet, we assert that the magnet exercises an attractive force on\nthe needle. But it is only by an interpretative act of our own minds\nthat we ascribe this motion to attraction. That, in this case, a force\nis exerted--something of the nature of the pull which we could apply by\nour own volition--is our interpretation of the phenomena; although we\nmay be conscious of the act of interpretation, and may then regard the\nattraction as a Fact.\n\n\"Nor is it in such cases only that we interpret phenomena in our\nown way, without being conscious of what we do. We see a tree at a\ndistance, and judge it to be a chestnut or a lime; yet this is only an\ninference from the colour or form of the mass according to preconceived\nclassifications of our own. Our lives are full of such unconscious\ninterpretations. The farmer recognizes a good or a bad soil; the\nartist a picture of a favourite master; the geologist a rock of a\nknown locality, as we recognize the faces and voices of our friends;\nthat is, by judgments formed on what we see and hear; but judgments in\nwhich we do not analyze the steps, or distinguish the inference from\nthe appearance. And in these mixtures of observation and inference, we\nspeak of the judgment thus formed, as a Fact directly observed.\n\n\"Even in the case in which our perceptions appear to be most direct,\nand least to involve any interpretations of our own,--in the simple\nprocess of seeing,--who does not know how much we, by an act of the\nmind, add to that which our senses receive? Does any one fancy that\nhe sees a solid cube? It is easy to show that the solidity of the\nfigure, the relative position of its faces and edges to each other,\nare inferences of the spectator; no more conveyed to his conviction\nby the eye alone, than they would be if he were looking at a painted\nrepresentation of a cube. The scene of nature is a picture without\ndepth of substance, no less than the scene of art; and in the one\ncase as in the other, it is the mind which, by an act of its own,\ndiscovers that colour and shape denote distance and solidity. Most men\nare unconscious of this perpetual habit of reading the language of the\nexternal world, and translating as they read. The draughtsman, indeed,\nis compelled, for his purposes, to return back in thought from the\nsolid bodies which he has inferred, to the shapes of surface which he\nreally sees. He knows that there is a mask of theory over the whole\nface of nature, if it be _theory_ to infer more than we _see_. But\nother men, unaware of this masquerade, hold it to be a fact that they\nsee cubes and spheres, spacious apartments and winding avenues. And\nthese things are facts to them, because they are unconscious of the\nmental operation by which they have penetrated nature's disguise.\n\n\"And thus, we still have an intelligible distinction of Fact and\nTheory, if we consider Theory as a conscious, and Fact as an\nunconscious inference, from the phenomena which are presented to our\nsenses.\"--Whewell, _Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences_, B. I. Chap.\nii. Sect. 10.\n\n\nF.--ON THE \"UNKNOWABLE.\"\n\nIf the word which heads this note could be accepted in the sense\nunderstood by Mr. Spencer's American critic, as a truthful and in all\nrespects complete description of the First Ground of all things, there\nmust of course be an end of all Theology, natural, and supernatural;\nTheism, Pantheism, and Atheism, would together become what Comte\nthought them,--equally unfounded, equally unmeaning, and therefore\nequally to be opposed, condemned, and ostracized. Between Humanity and\nall that is Superhuman the gulf would appear hopelessly impassable.\n\n\"To be consistent,\" says the Editor of the American _Index_,\n\"Empiricism must utterly sink the soul in its material\nsurroundings....\" Mr. Spencer makes his election in Empiricism, but\nshrinks from the acceptance of its necessary implications, and thereby\nforfeits his title to rank among the great leaders of philosophy.\nTeaching that every faculty of the mind is the effect of impressions\nmade by the Environment upon the Organism, he should also teach that\nthe mind is nothing distinct from the organism, and that the mind's\nfaculties will perish at the disintegration of the organism; that, as\nfire is a mere phenomenon of chemical combination, ceasing with it, so\nlife is a mere phenomenon of organic \"re-arrangement of parts,\" and\nwill cease when the Dissolution which is the converse and sequel of\nEvolution has become complete; and that the \"theory of a 'soul' is as\ncompletely exploded as the theory of 'phlogiston.'\"\n\nSuch is the opinion of an unsympathising reviewer, who calls himself\na Positivist of the latest development. He despises Comte, praises\nHamilton, and preaches the truth of Dualism. \"If,\" he writes, \"physical\nscience sneeringly objects that mental science proceeds on a sheer\nassumption of mind, the retort is crushing and cogent that physical\nscience proceeds on the sheer assumption of matter. Who ever yet\ndemonstrated the existence of either?... Only by admitting what\ncan neither be demonstrated without a begging of the question, nor\ndoubted without a _reductio ad absurdam_ of all intelligence,--namely,\nthe natural veracity of the intuitive and cognitive powers,--is a\ntruly positive science possible.\" From this dualistic Positivism he\npredicts the rise of a new Theology. \"We believe that Theism must\nbe re-theologized on the basis of pure Positivism, as the absolute\ncondition of its future growth.\" From the same point of view, Mr.\nSpencer's \"reconciliation of Science and Religion\" is \"pretended\"; and\nhis \"philosophy is chiefly valuable as indicating the rapid spread of\nthe true spirit of Positivism,\" but, \"like Comtism, it possesses little\nor no value as an exposition of Positivism in the highest departments\nof science.\"\n\nThis censure of Spencer was combated in a subsequent number of the\n_Index_, by a writer signing himself \"Evolutionist.\" The Editor\nprints his letter, and replies to it briefly:--\"1. The 'unknowable'\nmust be an absolute blank to every intelligence. It surely cannot\nbe held legitimate to make _any predicate_ of it whatever, as Mr.\nSpencer himself admits. Yet he does make predicates of it which are\n'derived from our own natures' and thus violates his own principle.\n'Omnipresence' is simply _presence throughout all space_; and what do\nwe know of 'presence' at all but by our own experience? Mr. Spencer\ndoes the very thing he forbids us to do, in making this predication.\n\n\"2. The difference between him and us is briefly this. He denies that\nwe know anything of Force; we affirm that we know it just so far as it\nperceptibly acts. The Cause of Nature we maintain to be known _in its\neffects_. Hence Force is not to us the 'Unknowable,' but is rather the\n'God of Science,' known just so far as Nature is known.\"\n\nHere follow some stringent criticisms of the distinction between\nphenomena and noumena accepted by Mill as well as Spencer, which we\npass over as being somewhat unintelligible without a longer discussion\nthan can here be given to them.\n\nOn the subject of our first quotation--Empiricism--many readers may\nlike to peruse the opinion of a writer far removed from Mr. Abbott in\nphilosophy. The following is Hegel's dictum:--\n\n\"In Empiricism lies the great principle that whatever is true must\nbe in the actual world and present to sensation.... Touching this\nprinciple it has been justly observed that, in what we call Experience,\nas distinct from the individual sensation of individual facts, there\nare two elements. First, there is the infinitely complex matter, which\nso far as itself is concerned is individualised: secondly, there is the\nform, as seen in the characteristics of universality and necessity.\nEmpiricism no doubt can point to many, almost innumerable, similar\nperceptions: but, after all, no multitude, however great, can be the\nsame thing as universality. Similarly, Empiricism reaches so far as the\nperception of changes in succession and of objects in juxtaposition or\nco-existence; but it presents no necessary connexion. If sensation,\ntherefore, is to maintain its claim to be the sole basis of what men\nhold for truth, universality and necessity can have no right to exist:\nthey become an accident of our minds, a mere custom, the content of\nwhich might be otherwise constituted than it is.\n\n\"It is an important corollary of this theory, that in the empirical\nmode of treatment the truths and rules of justice and morality, as\nwell as the body of religion, are exhibited as the work of chance, and\nstripped of their objective character and inner truth.\"[133]\n\nConsidering how far Hegel confirms the American Positivist's opinion\nrespecting the inevitable conclusions of consistent Empiricism,\nMr. Spencer may with reason be congratulated on his very happy\ninconsistency.\n\nThe subject of quotation No. 2--Spencer's position in regard of the\nUnknowable--contains a censure which unites in alliance many widely\ndiffering authorities on this side the Atlantic. Some of these assail\nit from an extremely hostile point of view; but the criticism of others\nis conceived in a half-friendly, half-indifferent spirit. Mr. Spencer\nhas very lately published a third volume of \"Essays,\" and devotes\nArticles X. and XI. to his reviewers.[134] It need hardly be said that\nthese pages will repay perusal. We shall here venture on giving a brief\naccount of his defence as it presents itself to our own understanding.\n\nThe most salient difference between him and his critics _generally_,\nseems to lie in this circumstance;--they begin by taking the word\n\"Unknowable\" in its strict (_i.e._ its proper) signification. Hence\nthey appear to assume that by \"Absolute\" he means--or _ought_ to\nmean even when seeming to say the contrary--\"_absolutely_ abstract.\"\nNow of a mere, that is, a pure and complete abstraction, nothing can\nbe predicated, because the idea is perfectly empty. It is in fact a\nNothingness.\n\nBut suppose we say of this Absolute, (as Spencer does), it exists;--we\n_have_ predicated something already;--something which destroys its\ncomplete emptiness. And again, if we are asked or, (what is better),\nask ourselves how we _know_ that an Absolute does exist, and proceed\nto reply, as Spencer himself replies, because it _must_ exist; we\nshall have made respecting our Absolute this highest of all possible\npredications. It is not only Being, but necessary Being, or, in\nother words, it is a Self-Existent. Still more, since it is so in\ncontradistinction from the universe of relativities, it is The\nSelf-Existent, a totally different idea from that which the American\neditor dissects.\n\nBut now comes the question, who or what is answerable for the\nReviewer's misconception,--Spencer or his critics? Is it the poverty\nof language, or the law of controversial sequency,--a law under\nwhich every thought arises as antagonistic to some other thought,\nand afterwards, when arisen and firmly established so as to become\nthe subject of analysis, is found to yield more than was at first\nconceived. Then, of course, another antithesis arises respecting it,\nand we have to decide how much and what is truly meant, a question\nwhich often comes before us in this shape:--Is our thought merely the\n_not_ so and so, or is it a real _substantive_ idea? In the former\ncase it is one-sided and negative; in the latter it is many-sided and\naffirmative.\n\nAt the first blush, it seems natural to blame Mr. Herbert Spencer.\nEvery one must feel astonished to find how much he himself knows\nof the Unknowable. The following sentences, however, contain a\ngood account of one amongst his principal explanations of this\napparent incongruity. Speaking of Mr. Martineau's conception of the\nCreator,[135] he writes (_Essays_, Vol. III. p. 299):--\n\n\"Finding, as just shewn, that it leaves the essential mystery unsolved;\nI do not see that it has an advantage over the doctrine of the\nUnknowable in its unqualified shape. There cannot, I think, be more\nthan temporary rest in a proximate solution which takes for its basis\nthe ultimately insoluble. Just as thought cannot be prevented from\npassing beyond Appearance, and trying to conceive the Cause behind;\nso, following out the interpretation Mr. Martineau offers, thought\ncannot be prevented from asking what Cause it is which restricts the\nCause he assigns. And if we must admit that the question under this\neventual form cannot be answered, may we not as well confess that the\nquestion under its immediate form cannot be answered? Is it not better\ncandidly to acknowledge the incompetence of our intelligence, rather\nthan to persist in calling that an explanation which does but disguise\nthe inexplicable? Whatever answer each may give to this question, he\ncannot rightly blame those who, finding in themselves an indestructible\nconsciousness of an ultimate Cause, whence proceed alike what we call\nthe Material Universe and what we call Mind, refrain from affirming\nanything respecting it; because they find it as inscrutable in nature,\nas it is inconceivable in extent and duration.\"\n\nThere will be to many people much force in this plea for leaving\ninscrutables amidst their primary obscurities. But it is open to a\nrejoinder suggested by Mr. Spencer himself,--you cannot prevent the\nMind from inquiring; and, in point of fact, Spencer in person leads the\nway. He places before us the ultimate idea of a self-existent First\nCause. Now surely he might reflect that such an Idea not only permits\nbut invites analysis;--it is no empty abstraction, but a substantive\nthought and a full one. But he bars analysis to his own satisfaction,\nby saying that the Idea is in its own Nature inscrutable. Respecting\nthis position two questions arise. First, if inscrutable as to its\nultimate nature--its highest essence, and deepest thought,--is it so\nin its attributes? Next, if Spencer's special walk in philosophy ends\nwith the bare positing of this Idea, must _all_ Philosophy do the\nsame? Suppose the Physicist says--\"Here I learn to know the Fact of a\nself-existent universal First Cause,\" may not the investigator of our\nPractical human Reason try to discover whether an Ethical view ought\nor ought not to be taken of this Self-Existent? To answer \"No,\" is\neither to make physical philosophy the _sole_ philosophy; or it is to\ndismember and disjoint the universal Body of Truth into departmental\ncarcase-fragments;--a process which never can begin till all Life\nhas been effectually crushed out of the Whole.[136] For every one\nwho takes wide views of Philosophy;--for every inquirer into First\nPrinciples;--above all, if Mr. Spencer will permit us to say so, for\nevery Encyclop\u00e6dic writer like himself, a question must arise the\nanswer to which it is incumbent on all and each to ascertain, \"Can we\nhave any conscious idea whatever of a First Cause without including\nthat very fact of Personality from which Spencer appears to shrink?\"\nNay we may rather put the point thus: \"Is not our idea and definition\nof _Causality_ derived from Personal existence, and apart from this\nsource of derivation, does not the derived idea perish?\"--If so, to\nspeak of a non-personal First Cause both of the outside world and\nof mind itself is to use words to which no thinker can consciously\nattach any real meaning. There must, says Mr. Spencer, be Power behind\nAppearance;--in other words, Phenomena imply a Cause behind them,--but\nto add that this Power or Cause is conceivably impersonal, seems\nnothing better than to imagine (Hibernic\u00e8) at the beginning of the\nphenomenal chain, a _prior_ phenomenon which in its own nature and _ex\nvi verborum_ cannot account for a Beginning[137] at all;--cannot, to\nuse Mr. Spencer's expression, be \"ultimate\"; and, in short, requires to\nbe accounted for, itself.\n\nThe truth is, that such ideas as First, Ultimate, Power accounting\nfor appearance, or Cause underlying phenomena, cannot be spoken of as\naltogether Unknowable; because they imply and contain within themselves\ncertain knowable and strongly defined characteristics. Pressed by his\ncritics, Mr. Spencer becomes painfully aware of this truth; and is\nfearful of being driven by logic and philosophical consistency to plead\nguilty of believing in a Personal Author of the Universe, and of making\nTheism the ultimate word of Science. We see on pp. 292 and 302 of Vol.\nIII. how he manifests a preference for the phrase non-relative, _vice_\nAbsolute; meaning thereby (if he means anything new) to replace an\naffirmative idea by a negational abstract, empty enough to land him at\nonce in American Positivism. For, _if_ the non-relative means _more_\nthan to say that he is unable to predicate _relativity_ of the _whole_\nUniverse of things--if it means _more_ than an avowal of Positivist\nignorance--it really does mean a true Absolute after all; and very few\nstudents of Mr. Spencer will doubt that in the sense of an Absolute\n(not necessarily Hegelian), this ground idea of his must be accepted.\n\nAs courteous antagonists, we will endeavour to abstain from joining\nwith Mr. Sidgwick in the severest censure which has yet befallen Mr.\nSpencer,--the imputation of a \"mazy inconsistency,\" a \"fundamental\nincoherence,\" and an \"inability to harmonize different lines of\nthought.\" We rather wish to congratulate him on presenting such\nan appearance before the eye of a critic so accomplished, and so\nequitable; it is a sign that we have not as yet heard Mr. Spencer's\nfinal utterance. He is, we are quite sure, divided by a wide tract of\nthought from the American Positivists;--but we are _not_ sure that\nhe may not ultimately be found amid the ranks of Scientific Theists.\nThis at the present moment appears the most natural development of\nthe thoughts maintained in his recently published volume. That the\nnature of GOD, considered as the \"ultimate cause of what we\ncall the material universe and what we call mind,\" is to us at present\ninscrutable;--that clouds and darkness are round about Him;--that\nHis ways are not as our ways, nor His thoughts as our thoughts, no\nmeditative Theist will deny. But, though the Heavens are higher than\nthe Earth, though beatified spirits worship in humble adoration of\nthe Incomprehensible, yet the measureless distance does not hinder us\nfrom knowing Him as a Spirit, and therefore as a PERSON; nor\nyet from confidently affirming that Righteousness and Judgment are the\nhabitation of His throne.\n\n\nG.--MR. J. S. MILL AS AN INDEPENDENT MORALIST.\n\nFew passages of Mr. Mill's writings are better worth reading than pages\n123, 4, of his \"Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy.\" In these\npages the eminent writer asserts his own strong moral sentiments, and\nthrows to the winds that inconsistent Utilitarianism with which he had\ntrained his mind to associate them. He will worship no Unknowable Being\nwhose supreme moral nature does not affirm our human morality. \"Why is\nthis?\" an opponent might fairly ask; \"is it not useful so to do? is\nnot such worship conducive to that noblest final end, the interest of\nmankind?\" By saying \"No\" you affirm two things: one, the _dissociation_\nof Religion from Utility; a second, the indivisible _association_ of\nReligion with absolute Morality.\n\nSome antagonists may consider the first of these two propositions\ninadmissible, the second objectionable, or at all events, exceedingly\ndoubtful. Every one who maintains that Natural Theology has, in\naddition to its other elements, a firm and moral ground, will accept\nwith ready assent the second proposition, and will say that the\ntruth or falsehood of the first depends on the meaning attached to\nan ambiguous word. We are equally sure that \"Godliness is profitable\nfor all things,\" and that \"Honesty is the best policy.\" But then\nwe are quite sure also, that the final cause of Godliness is not\nprofit, nor its essential nature a love of gain; and that policy is\nnot a true description of honesty, nor the being politic the true and\nproper aim of the honest man. And Mr. Mill, when his moral sentiments\nasserted themselves, felt these certainties as elements of his inner\nlife. Rather than worship a Being whose unknown moral attributes fell\nbeneath, not the dictates of Utility, but the purest instincts of his\nown inmost morality, Mr. Mill goes on to declare that he is willing\nto suffer the horrors of Eternal death.[138] Hell is better than a\nviolation of his own moral nature. Can this be a declaration deduced\nfrom the supreme law of Interest,--is it not rather a foundation maxim\nof independent morality? Violate such foundation maxims, says the\nindependent moralist, and you need not even speak of \"Going to hell,\"\nhell will come to you. Sooner or later you will find its undying\ntorments within you.\n\nIn an article on the death of Mr. Mill, the _Pall Mall Gazette_\nexpresses its perception of his leading inconsistency as follows:--\n\n\"It is impossible to read Mr. Mill's works with any attention, and in\nparticular to look with intelligence on the later part of his career,\nwithout seeing that by temperament he was essentially religious, but\nthat as far as positive doctrine went his mind was an absolute blank.\nWe believe that it was this sharp contrast between theory and feeling\nwhich drove him into the schemes for the improvement of the world\nwhich have been exposed to so many, and, in some respects, to such\nwell-founded objections. Having to love something, and being, as it\nwere, chained down by his own logic to this world and this life, past,\npresent, and future, he struggled to make a sort of religion out of\nman as he might come to be after centuries or millenniums. Humanity,\nprogress, a realization of all the ideals at which his theories\npointed--these were his divinities, for he was a man who could not do\nwithout some divinity, and he could find no other. We do not think\nthat his life or his thoughts were triumphant. If he had consistently\nfollowed out his own views, if he had carried out his Benthamism with\nperfect consistency, the result would have been too hard, too grim, too\ndismal for his eager and sensitive heart. Hence came the faltering,\nthe inconsistency, the romance of his later days. It is a spectacle\nwhich may well humble every one who looks on it with intelligence and\nsympathy. From us, at least, it shall never draw one word of sarcasm,\nor one thought which is not full of deep respect, regret, and pity. He\nbore a burden common to many. If he bent under it, it was not because\nhis strength was less, but because his sensibility was greater. When\nhe died one of the tenderest and most passionate hearts that ever set\nto work an intellect of iron was laid to rest. May he rest in peace,\nand find, if it be possible, that his knowledge was less complete than\nhe perhaps supposed, and that there was more to be known than was\nacknowledged in his philosophy.\" (_Pall Mall Gazette_, Saturday, May,\n10, 1873.)\n\nA little earlier in the same article we find another paragraph worthy\nof careful consideration:--\"No succession of writers ever exercised\ngreater power over the fortunes of this nation, we might say of any\nnation, than Locke, Hume, Adam Smith, Bentham, and Mr. Mill. What may\nbe described as the theory of modern life has been thought out by them,\nand translated into its practical equivalents with a persistency, a\nprecision, a degree of method and calmness unequalled in the history of\nthought. We do not say that their results are complete, but we do say\nthat their teaching has been successful to an unexampled degree; and\nthat, however unpopular it may be with ardent and enthusiastic persons,\nit is impossible to believe that it could have done what it has done\nwithout possessing a very strong hold on human nature.\"\n\nViewing this extract by the light of the one before cited, we cannot\nhelp asking what side of human nature is it to which the Benthamite\ndoctrines attach themselves? Shall we not regret that the hard, the\ngrim, and the dismal, should characterize our 19th century philosophy?\nPhilosophy that is falsely so called; for the true is \"not harsh and\ncrabbed as dull fools suppose.\"\n\nThe text of this Essay and its earlier notes were completed while\nMr. Mill was in the ripeness of his powers, and when the present\nwriter never expected to outlive him. Death softens our view of one\nwho has passed away--the bygone life becomes like a moonlighted\nlandscape--asperities hidden in shadow, and a soft radiance poured over\neach grander eminence. So may it be felt by the critic of every great\ndeparted! If, indeed, it prove otherwise with Mr. Mill, the preventing\ncause will probably be found in certain pages of his published\n\"Autobiography.\"\n\n\nH.--ARCHEBIOSIS, OR SPONTANEOUS GENERATION.\n\nThe origin of Life is a question that naturally excites much interest,\nand consequently has been much discussed. It is obviously a problem\nthat presents difficulties of no ordinary kind, and therefore it is\nby no means astonishing that many theories have been started and\nstatements made which have in turn been quickly contradicted.\n\nIt is now known that the whole cycle of phenomena--collectively denoted\nby the term \"_Life_,\"--is manifested by a substance possessing definite\nphysical and chemical properties, and by no other. This substance\nconstitutes the entire organism of the lower forms of life, whether\nanimal or vegetable, and also of the higher in their earliest stage,\nwhile from it by various metamorphoses are developed the different\nhistological elements composing the complex tissues of higher animals\nand plants. Its name Protoplasm is in consequence exceedingly apt, when\nproperly understood.\n\nAs to the origin of Protoplasm (or apparent Life) it is clear from a\nlittle consideration that two questions may be asked: first, how did\nProtoplasm arise? and secondly, when once this substance had come into\nbeing are we to suppose that from that time to this all Protoplasm has\nbeen derived by unbroken descent from the first Protoplasm, or does\nfresh Protoplasm even now arise in the same way as did the first?--in\nother words, does the transition from the inorganic to the organic,\nfrom what has never lived to what is living, still take place as it\nmust have taken place at some period or another?\n\nTo neither of these questions can Physical Science return a perfectly\ncertain and definite answer. And it must be confessed that as far as\nour knowledge of Nature goes, those have the best of it who maintain\nfirst, that all existing Protoplasm implies pre-existing Protoplasm;\nsecondly, that as to the method, the conditions of the real origin\nof Protoplasm nothing whatsoever is known; and thirdly, that,\nnotwithstanding all assertions and experiments to the contrary, the\norigin of living things from dead and decaying organic matter (_i.e._,\nmatter that has lived), or from inorganic matter under given conditions\n(spontaneous generation, generatio \u00e6quivoca, archebiosis) has never\nbeen proved and demonstrated in such a manner as to allow us no room\nfor hesitation, no place for doubt.\n\nThe difficulties and dangers besetting this thorny and much-vexed\nsubject will be better understood if we institute a short examination\ninto the history and present condition of the doctrine of Spontaneous\nGeneration.\n\nIt is certain from the results of astronomical and geological\ninvestigation, that at an exceedingly remote epoch, estimated by untold\nmillions of years, the earth's surface was absolutely unfitted for the\npresence of life; nay, more, that even the laws of chemical combination\nwere suspended, and in abeyance. After the glowing spheroid cooled\ndown, and various chemical compounds were formed, life as a matter of\nfact made its appearance on the earth. Throughout the inorganic world\nthe continuity is unbroken--the present is truly the child of the\npast. But in the organic world it is not so. Whether life arose in the\nnatural course of universal law, or how it did arise, we cannot tell,\nscientifically, that is to say; no assertion, one way or the other,\nadmits either of proof or disproof. There are absolutely no data to\nproceed upon. The very first organic remains discovered belong to a\ncomparatively high type. It is as though in a garden every plant and\nbush burst at once into full flower, and never showed the flower in the\nbud.\n\nThese points are very well put in a passage of Littr\u00e9:[139] \"Jusqu'\u00e0 ce\nmoment, nous avons chemin\u00e9 de ph\u00e9nom\u00e8nes en ph\u00e9nom\u00e8nes qui se passaient\ntous sous le r\u00e9gime des lois chimiques et physiques. Leur succession\nne pr\u00e9sentait aucune solution de continuit\u00e9; les degr\u00e9s tenaient l'un\n\u00e0 l'autre; et c'est cette d\u00e9duction qui satisfait l'esprit humain, et\nqu'il nomme explication. Une fois que l'on reconnait une diss\u00e9mination\npremi\u00e8re, dans l'espace, d'une mati\u00e8re dou\u00e9e de gravitation et de\nmouvement, tout en ignorant absolument d'o\u00f9 vient cette mati\u00e8re and\nd'o\u00f9 proc\u00e8dent son mouvement et sa diss\u00e9mination, le reste s'ensuit.\nDes amas qu'on appelle soleils se forment par condensation; cette\ncondensation d\u00e9veloppe une immense chaleur; le refroidissement graduel\ns\u00e9pare les amas primordiaux en amas secondaires et plus petits qui\nse meuvent comme lui, se refroidissent comme lui, et repr\u00e9sentent\nnos plan\u00e8tes, nos satellites, et en particulier notre terre. On a\nl'univers, on passe au monde, et du monde au globe terrestre.\n\n\"Mais l\u00e0, sur le monde terrestre, un hiatus se pr\u00e9sente. Un ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne\nnouveau, une force nouvelle appara\u00eet, et la vie se d\u00e9veloppe en\nv\u00e9g\u00e9talit\u00e9 et animalit\u00e9. Ce ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne nouveau, cette force nouvelle,\ncette vie ne succ\u00e8dent point par une action continue aux actions\ncontinues dont le soleil et la terre sont le th\u00e9\u00e2tre; du moins, en\nl'\u00e9tat actuel de nos connaissances, la continuit\u00e9 nous \u00e9chappe. On\ncon\u00e7oit, gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 des faits exp\u00e9rimentaux recueillis de toutes parts et\ntransform\u00e9s en lois, comment notre globe se refroidit, comment, en se\nrefroidissant, il prend sa forme, comment l'atmosph\u00e8re, les continents,\nla mer se constituent; mais on ne con\u00e7oit plus comment la vie y parait\n\u00e0 un moment donn\u00e9. Et ce fut bien \u00e0 un moment donn\u00e9: pendant des\nmillions de si\u00e8cles, la terre, vu son incandescence, fut impropre \u00e0\ntoute vie. Quand la temp\u00e9rature y eut baiss\u00e9 au degr\u00e9 compatible avec\nles existences vivantes, ces existences se montr\u00e8rent; mais comment?\npar quel proc\u00e9d\u00e9?\n\n\"Il ne faut pourtant pas faire valoir outre mesure cette discontinuit\u00e9.\nUne discontinuit\u00e9, autre que celle qui appartient \u00e0 l'apparition de la\nvie, est survenue dans le cours du d\u00e9veloppement de la terre. Quand les\nparticules qui la composent, \u00e9taient anim\u00e9es d'une immense chaleur,\nune dissociation compl\u00e8te y r\u00e9gnait; elles n'ob\u00e9issaient qu'aux lois\ndu mouvement, de la gravitation, de la chaleur et de la lumi\u00e8re; les\nlois chimiques, c'est-\u00e0-dire de combinaison et de d\u00e9combinaison, n'y\n\u00e9taient qu'\u00e0 l'\u00e9tat virtuel. Elles pass\u00e8rent \u00e0 l'\u00e9tat effectif, d\u00e8s\nque l'abaissement de la temp\u00e9rature le permit. Je sais bien qu'une\ndiff\u00e9rence consid\u00e9rable existe entre ces deux discontinuit\u00e9s: en effet,\ndepuis lors, il a toujours \u00e9t\u00e9 possible de reproduire \u00e0 volont\u00e9 les\nfaits chimiques; et, toutes les fois que nous en avons besoin, nous\nr\u00e9p\u00e9tons le ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne d'origine qui se produisit dans les combinaisons\net d\u00e9combinaisons. Pour la vie, c'est autre chose; elle a \u00e9t\u00e9 une\nfois \u00e9mise, et, depuis le ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne d'origine, elle ne se propage\nque par g\u00e9n\u00e9ration. Un \u00eatre vivant est necessaire pour produire un\n\u00eatre vivant; et, ni par les proc\u00e9d\u00e9s de la nature, ni par ceux de la\nscience, ce qui se fit au moment cr\u00e9ateur ne se refait. Malgr\u00e9 cette\nconsid\u00e9rable diff\u00e9rence, il demeure que la terre a poss\u00e9d\u00e9 des forces\nvirtuelles qui sont entr\u00e9es en action, quand les conditions g\u00e9n\u00e9rales,\nse modifiant graduellement, l'ont permis.\"\n\nA little further on he continues:--\"Au point de vue d'origine, on\nabandonnera la question comme toutes les questions qui impliquent une\ncause premi\u00e8re. La philosophie positive s'exprime l\u00e0-dessus comme elle\ns'exprime touchant toutes les choses hyperphysiques, c'est-\u00e0-dire\nplac\u00e9es au del\u00e0 de l'exp\u00e9rience. Quand elle entend les mat\u00e9rialistes\nprononcer que la vie est le r\u00e9sultat des forces physiques et chimiques\ndont on conna\u00eet l'action, elle refuse d'accepter une solution qui\nd\u00e9passe les pr\u00e9misses. Mais elle n'\u00e9carte pas la solution mat\u00e9rialiste\nau profit de la solution th\u00e9ologique; l'intervention d'un Dieu\ncr\u00e9ateur est \u00e9galement inv\u00e9rifiable par l'exp\u00e9rience, et, partant,\natteinte de la m\u00eame fin de non-recevoir. Maintenant, si on demande\n\u00e0 la philosophie positive quelle est, \u00e0 elle, sa solution entre la\ng\u00e9n\u00e9ration mat\u00e9rialiste et la cr\u00e9ation surnaturelle, elle r\u00e9pond\nqu'elle n'a aucune solution \u00e0 proposer, que rien ne peut la forcer \u00e0\ncroire ce qui n'est pas d\u00e9montr\u00e9, et qu'elle accepte, avec autant de\nfermet\u00e9 que d'humilit\u00e9, une ignorance invincible sur tout ce qui est\nindemontrable.\"\n\nIn the first passage certain salient points are strikingly brought out,\nabove all the vast difference between the worlds organic and inorganic;\nbut, next, how much soever a Positivist may be pleased to believe only\nthat which admits of phenomenal verification, it is not every one,\nespecially if given to thought, who would willingly endorse the second\nparagraph. If we know only what we can verify, many beliefs must needs\nbe abandoned, and amongst them some which have received the almost\nuniversal assent of mankind. Knowledge (in the sense of verifiable\nknowledge) and Belief may appear two widely different things; but it\nshould never be forgotten that we often accept the one as surely as the\nother.\n\nThe ancients held that living things arose from the earth at any\ntime, engendered by the warmth of the sun and moisture. Absurd as it\nmay seem, the belief that blue-bottle flies, etc., were a natural\nresult of the decay of meat and other organic matter obtained credence\neven in comparatively modern times. Redi, an eminent Italian, first\ndemonstrated experimentally the falsehood of this doctrine, and for\nsome time the hypothesis of spontaneous generation appeared to have\nreceived a death-blow. And by degrees the conviction that every living\nthing proceeded from a germ gained strength, and was confirmed by the\nrapidly extending use of the microscope. Yet in the eighteenth century\ncertain experiments of Needham seemed to establish the fact that in\nboiled infusions where presumably all germs were destroyed, small\nInfusoria made their appearance even when means were taken to exclude\nthe entrance of fresh germs. Buffon lent the authority of his great\nname. These experiments were repeated by the Abb\u00e9 Spallanzani, who\nshowed by more careful methods the fallacy of the conclusions drawn. A\npassage in Sir B. Brodie[140] which alludes to these facts may be worth\nquoting:--\n\n\"Crites. Then am I to understand that you would reject altogether the\nhypothesis of equivocal generation, which supposes that under certain\ncircumstances, even at the present time, particles of inorganic\nmatter are brought together, and so united as to become endowed with\norganization and life?\n\n\"Eubulus. The question is one of great interest, and I will refer you\nto Ergates for an answer, knowing at the same time pretty well what\nthat answer will be.\n\n\"Ergates. Of course Crites refers to the production of those minute\ncreatures, known by the name of _Infusoria_, in the experiments of\nWalter Needham, and some others.\n\n\"It is true that in these experiments certain vegetable and animal\ninfusions, after no very long period of time, when examined by the\nmicroscope, are found to contain a multitude of minute creatures,\nof various forms, exhibiting signs of spontaneous motion, and\nmultiplying their species in the usual manner. Some of these are\neven of a complicated structure, much beyond what might, _\u00e0 priori_,\nbe expected as the result of the first attempt of inorganic matter\nto enter into the realms of organic life. The subject has been so\nfrequently discussed, that I need not trouble you with the details of\nthe arguments which have led the most eminent naturalists to believe\nthat these creatures are not really spontaneously engendered, but that\nthey are derived from minute ova which are present in the air, and\nwhich, when placed under circumstances favourable to their development,\nburst into life: in the same way as the egg undergoes those changes\nwhich convert its contents into a bird, when placed under the influence\nof the animal heat of the parent. But even if this view of the matter\nbe not correct, the case is not really altered; for, after all,\nthe _Infusoria_ are never detected except in vegetable and animal\ninfusions, which necessarily presuppose the existence of organic life.\"\n\nBut it is one thing to demolish the theory and statements of an\nantagonist, and another to erect a structure in their place.\nHowever completely Spallanzani had demonstrated the faults and\nuntrustworthiness of Needham's results, he had not established the\nopposite doctrine, and to many it seemed that the very conditions\nunder which his experimentation was conducted, were sufficient to\nprevent the development of life. But the work begun by Schulze and\nSchwann and ended by Pasteur apparently has supplied what was wanting\nin Spallanzani's researches. The evidence is thus admirably summed by\nProfessor Huxley:[141]--\n\n\"It is demonstrable, that a fluid eminently fit for the development\nof the lowest forms of life, but which contains neither germs, nor any\nprotein compound, gives rise to living things in great abundance, if\nit is exposed to ordinary air; while no such development takes place,\nif the air with which it is in contact is mechanically freed from the\nsolid particles, which ordinarily float in it and which maybe made\nvisible by appropriate means.\n\n\"It is demonstrable, that the great majority of these particles are\ndestructible by heat, and that some of them are germs, or living\nparticles, capable of giving rise to the same forms of life as those\nwhich appear when the fluid is exposed to unpurified air.\n\n\"It is demonstrable, that inoculation of the experimental fluid with\na drop of liquid known to contain living particles, gives rise to the\nsame phenomena as exposure to unpurified air.\n\n\"And it is further certain that these living particles are so minute\nthat the assumption of their suspension in ordinary air presents\nnot the slightest difficulty. On the contrary, considering their\nlightness and the wide diffusion of the organisms which produce them,\nit is impossible to conceive that they should not be suspended in the\natmosphere in myriads.\"\n\nThe experimental means by which these facts are proved may be briefly\nstated:--\n\nI. The air contains solid particles. Professor Tyndall has shown, as\nall who have read \"Dust and Disease\" know to their own discomfort, that\nthe purest common air, when submitted to a beam of electric light,\nrenders the track of that beam visible. Ergo, it must contain solid\nparticles capable of scattering light.\n\nII. These particles are mostly destructible by heat, or may be\nmechanically strained off. He has shown this by the fact that common\nair which has passed through a red-hot tube, or through a filter of\ncotton-wool, will no longer render the track of the electric beam\nvisible.\n\nIII. Many of these particles are germs. Schulze and Schwann proved that\nwhen air is passed through red-hot tubes, then through a fluid which is\ncapable of affording a nidus to the germs, if present, no development\nof life takes place. Similarly Schr[oe]der established the same fact by\nusing a strainer of cotton-wool. Further, Pasteur gave an additional\nproof by microscopical examination, as well as by a direct experiment.\nHe passed air through gun-cotton, dissolved this in ether; and in the\ncollodion germs were clearly recognizable. Also he plunged a piece of\ncotton-wool through which air had been strained into an experimental\nfluid. This fluid soon swarmed with forms of life.\n\nIV. The experimental fluid may be inoculated by simple exposure to\nair as well as by any fluids known to contain living forms; _e.g._,\nif the fluid be placed in an open vessel, living forms soon make\ntheir appearance. Yet supposing the aperture of the vessel, instead\nof pointing vertically upwards, be turned obliquely or downwards, the\nfluid will remain clear for an indefinite time. Similarly a drop of an\ninfusion containing living forms added to the experimental fluid soon\ncauses it to swarm with life. The forms that appear are the same in\neither case.\n\nV. The experimental fluid cannot give rise itself to these forms. It is\nknown as Pasteur's solution, and consists of water, ammonium, tartrate,\nsugar, and yeast ash. Hence there is no organic matter in it. If proper\ncare be taken, it may be kept for an indefinite time.\n\nVI. The germs are so minute that in many cases, even when known to be\npresent, they are scarcely visible to the highest microscopic powers.\nThey must be universally diffused, as any organic infusion left exposed\nsoon swarms with the forms to which they give rise.\n\nSuch an array of facts, proved experimentally over and over again,\nmust convince the most tenacious sceptic, and he may feel inclined to\nagree with the opinion expressed in the following passage from Sir B.\nBrodie:[142]--\n\n\"Crites. Then, if I understand you rightly, you have arrived at these\nconclusions. First, that there was a time when this earth was not in\na fit state for the maintenance of either animal or vegetable life.\nSecondly, that in its present condition there is no evidence of any\nlaw being in operation which would account for any living beings being\ncalled into existence except as the offspring of other living beings\nwhich previously existed; and that from these premises we cannot fail\nto arrive at this further conclusion, that the first introduction of\nlife on earth must have been by some special act of the creative power,\nof which we have no experience at present.\n\n\"Eubulus. I suspect that this, really and truly, is all we actually\nknow on the subject.\"\n\nNotwithstanding this apparently irresistible amount of evidence,\nthe question of abiogenesis has recently been revived by Dr. C.\nBastian in a well-known book, \"The Beginnings of Life.\" Dr. Bastian\nbelieves that he has demonstrated the origin of living organisms from\norganic infusions as well as from solutions of salts containing no\norganic matter: nay, even more wonderful facts than these which it is\nunnecessary to specify. His experiments are so numerous, his assertions\nand figures so clear and definite, and his reputation for previous\ngood scientific work once so high, that the book has caused no small\nstir and discussion. Could Dr. Bastian's facts be only established,\nthey would inevitably revolutionize the whole science of Biology.\n\nHowever, the same fate which has overtaken his predecessors has\nbefallen Dr. Bastian himself. A nearly universal verdict of \"Not\nproven\" has been returned: and not only is the accuracy of his\nexperimentation denied, but even worse accusations have been brought.\nTo enter into details of his experiments would require too much space,\nbut it may not be uninteresting to detail some of the peculiarities and\ndifficulties which attend on the investigation of such a subject as\nSpontaneous Generation.\n\nAt the very threshold of the inquiry stands a grand difficulty. Strange\nas it may seem, it is nevertheless true, that notwithstanding the\nmany years, the immense labour bestowed by illustrious men on this\nsubject, next to nothing is known of the relations existing between\nthe lowest forms of life, animal or vegetable (especially the latter),\nas well as their germs, and varying physical and chemical conditions.\nHeat, light, cold and darkness, alkalies and acids with other chemical\ncompounds, one would imagine to be not without their influence. Yet\nwhat this influence may be in a given case, none can tell. Enough is\nknown in the way of a few detached facts to make it certain that these\nagents have very decided effects. It might be thought that any one\nwho wished to attack the problem of Spontaneous Generation anew would\nfirst try to obtain some connected knowledge on this point. Indeed,\nuntil it has been cleared up somewhat, it is not very evident what good\nExperimentation on Heterogenesis can do. It is much as if a chemist\nwere to throw a handful of stuff (what he knew not) into a crucible,\nand then expect a valuable result. It can scarcely be doubted that\nmany of these lower organisms live and grow under conditions which _\u00e0\npriori_ might seem incompatible with vitality.\n\nIt is clear also that the work of one experimenter ought to be such as\nmay admit of repetition by another with the same result. Now no one\nwho attempts the study of this subject of Spontaneous Generation, can\nfail to be struck with the immense mass of conflicting evidence. Some\nmischievous spirit appears to have purposely thrown confusion over the\nwhole. Facts are alternately stated and denied. It is very hard to be\nsure of the right road, even for an experienced person.\n\nAnother point relates to the value of the evidence when obtained. It\ncan scarcely be doubted that out of a given number of experiments\nundertaken to establish a case of Heterogenesis or Archebiosis, great\nvalue should be attached to the negative evidence afforded by those\nthat disprove the supposed fact. A little consideration will show the\nreason. The precautions to be taken against the intrusion of germs\nare innumerable: a slight exposure to the air, accidental contact of\nan unheated rod or tube, or neglect of some other particulars may\ninoculate the experimental fluid. Hence even with care the chances are\nmany in favour of some such accidental intrusion, and great caution\nshould always be exercised before an affirmative result can be regarded\nas firmly established.\n\nAnd further there is the experimentalist himself to be taken into\naccount. The task requires an intimate knowledge of many minute\norganisms, and the different forms they assume; an acquaintance, wide\nand accurate, with various experimental methods; a clear view of the\nend and the various precautions required to attain that end; a mind\nready to contrive, prone to doubt and to hesitate, rather than to be\nconvinced. Men vary much in the amount of what is scientifically termed\ntheir personal equation, and one difficulty in accepting the results of\na piece of work is the danger of misplaced confidence.\n\nAs was said before, Dr. Bastian's attempt to demonstrate the reality of\nSpontaneous Generation has been a failure. His experiments have been\nrepeated, and failed to give the like results in the hands of competent\nmen. Witness the following quotation from a careful review of his book\nin the Microscopical Journal.[143] It relates to the now celebrated\ncheese and turnip solution.\n\n\"Nevertheless in consequence of the interest which Dr. Bastian's work\nhas excited, we have made the experiment (and that repeatedly) as\ndirected by him. This is not the occasion on which to give the details\nof the experiments in question. It will, however, perhaps add some\nvalue to the remarks which it has been our duty to make when we state\nthat, carefully following Dr. Bastian's directions, using at the same\ntime great care as to cleanliness and due boiling, we have obtained\nresults which _in every single instance_, out of more than forty tubes\nclosed on four separate occasions, simply contradict Dr. Bastian. We\nbelieve, then, that Dr. Bastian's last dogma in archebiosis,--his\nbelief in turnip solution with a fragment of cheese--must be placed in\nthe same category as his colloidal urea, his spontaneously generated\nbog-moss, his fungi born in crystals, his unmistakable processes of\nheterogenesis, and his 'watching' and 'experimentation' in general.\"\n\nThe reviewer proceeds to question whether Dr. Bastian has even the\nknowledge requisite for so delicate an investigation. It would be\nsupposed that he was intimately acquainted with various microscopical\nstructures; but we read,[144] \"Professor Huxley gives a contribution\ntowards the determination of the personal value in Dr. Bastian's\nresearches. 'He (Dr. Bastian) will recollect that he wrote to me asking\npermission to bring for my examination certain preparations of organic\nstructures, which he declared he had clear and positive evidence to\nprove to have been developed in his closed and digested tubes. Dr.\nBastian will remember that when the first of these wonderful specimens\nwas put under my microscope I told him at once that it was nothing\nbut a fragment of the leaf of the common bog-moss (Sphagnum), and he\nwill recollect that I had to fetch Schacht's book \"Die Pflanzenzelle\"\nand show him a figure which fitted very well with what we had under\nthe microscope before I could get him to listen to my suggestion, and\nthat only actual comparison with Sphagnum, after he had left my house,\nforced him to admit the astounding blunder which he had made.'\n\n\"Of these three pieces of evidence, the last is the most important,\nfor, whilst it places us on our guard with regard to Dr. Bastian's\naccuracy generally, it at the same time furnishes a key to the\nexplanation of a number of his experiments in which, according to\nthat precipitate discoverer, 'organisms' were found on opening tubes\ncontaining infusions which had been boiled and sealed hermetically.\"\n\nHow then are we to sum up the case? for or against Dr. Bastian? Can any\nthoughtful person admit the conclusions of one apparently so unfit for\nhis task? The best answer is in the words of his Reviewer.[145]\n\n\"Briefly it is to be said that the chapters in this book on\nheterogenesis, contain a reckless attempt to revolutionize biological\ndoctrine without a single demonstration of fact to justify it, even\nif it be admitted that the observations and drawings cited are\naccurate. Revolution in science as in politics can only be justified by\nsuccess--a wanton attempt in either sphere must deserve the severest\ncondemnation. Dr. Bastian by his exhibition of himself in dealing with\nheterogenesis writes himself down as incapable--as inadmissible in the\ncharacter of a witness in a scientific investigation. The Sphagnum\ndelusion is now explained, for it becomes evident that we have to deal\nwith an individual with whom such delusions are no rare exceptions.\n\n\"We should indeed be sorry to believe that Dr. Bastian is himself\naware of the injury which he is doing to the cause of science, by\npromulgating these rash assertions as to the beginnings and changes of\nliving things; we altogether decline to entertain the notion that he\nis himself conscious of the baselessness and flimsy character of his\nstartling discoveries, and is nevertheless willing at the expense of\ninjury to the cause of intellectual progress, to obtain for himself\na temporary notoriety. On the contrary, we believe that he is under\nthe influence of a delusion, similar to those which from time to time\nobtain notoriety in the case of 'spiritualists,' 'circle-squarers,'\nand such victims of belief in the marvellous. The origin and mode of\ngrowth of such delusions form a very interesting psychological study,\nand it is only when we have obtained a proper conception of Dr. Bastian\nas an abnormal psychological phenomenon that we can hope rightly to\nappreciate the whole of the statements made in his book.\n\n\"Delusion and self-deception are much commoner than the world is\ngenerally accustomed to consider them. In a very well-known and often\nquoted remark we have a recognition of the wide-spread occurrence of\ndelusions and an attempt to explain their origin; the saying to which\nwe allude is, 'The wish was father to the thought.' There cannot be the\nleast doubt that men are unconsciously hindered or misdirected in their\nestimate of fact by previously formed desires. Such a desire acts on\nthe mind like the suggestion of the mesmerist to an individual who has\nallowed himself to be brought into the hypnotic condition. In this way\nmany misconceptions and strange contradictions of testimony are to be\nexplained.\"\n\nThe importance of the subject is sufficient apology for so long a\nquotation. But our quotations allow us to draw one conclusion; that\nso far as Spontaneous Generation is concerned human knowledge is\nexactly _in statu quo_. Up to this time there is no evidence, worth\nconsideration, that establishes a single good case of heterogenesis;\nnay, rather all evidence points to the conclusion that Protoplasm\nis invariably derived from pre-existing Protoplasm, at least under\nexisting conditions. Then too there is no fact known which enables us\nto say how Protoplasm arose in the first instance. On this point we are\nin the darkness of complete scientific ignorance. The whole discussion\nmay be well closed by a striking passage from Professor Huxley's before\nquoted address.[146]\n\n\"But though I cannot express this conviction of mine too strongly,\nI must carefully guard myself against the supposition that I intend\nto suggest that no such thing as abiogenesis ever has taken place\nin the past, or ever will take place in the future. With organic\nchemistry, molecular physics, and physiology yet in their infancy, and\nevery day making prodigious strides, I think it would be the height\nof presumption for any man to say that the conditions under which\nmatter assumes the properties we call 'vital' may not, some day, be\nartificially brought together. All I feel justified in affirming is,\nthat I see no reason for believing that the feat has been performed yet.\n\n\"And, looking back through the prodigious vista of the past, I find\nno record of the commencement of life, and therefore I am devoid of\nany means of forming a definite conclusion as to the conditions of\nits appearance. Belief, in the scientific sense of the word, is a\nserious matter, and needs strong foundations. To say, therefore, in the\nadmitted absence of evidence, that I have any belief as to the mode\nin which the existing forms of life have originated, would be using\nwords in a wrong sense. But expectation is permissible where belief is\nnot; and if it were given me to look beyond the abyss of geologically\nrecorded time to the still more remote period when the earth was\npassing through physical and chemical conditions, which it can no more\nsee again than a man can recal his infancy, I should expect to be a\nwitness of the evolution of living protoplasm from not living matter.\nI should expect to see it appear under forms of great simplicity,\nendowed, like existing Fungi, with the power of determining the\nformation of new protoplasm from such matters as ammonium carbonates,\noxalates and tartrates, alkaline and earthy phosphates, and water,\nwithout the aid of light. That is the expectation to which analogical\nreasoning leads me; but I beg you once more to recollect that I have no\nright to call my opinion anything but an act of philosophical faith.\"\n\nObviously, as Professor Huxley points out, between philosophical faith\nand philosophical knowledge there is a chasm to be bridged over. But\nshould the hypothesis ever be verified, it would make no difference\nto the reasonings of the Natural Theologian--since the concurrence\nof conditions necessary for the production of the ph\u00e6nomenon would\nmanifestly ensue upon some definite though recondite law, at present\nbeyond our ken.\n\n\nI.--ON MATERIALISM.\n\nThe ambiguities attaching to this term were mentioned in a foot-note\non our very first page. Since that note was written, the tendency of\nscientific men has been to increase the number of hypotheses respecting\nthe nature and laws of the material world, and by consequence to\nmultiply the shades of signification conveyed by the word Materialism.\n\nSo long as such distinctions are confined to the territory of pure\nscience, whether that of the Physicist or of the Biologist, they do\nnot in themselves affect the religious (or ethico-religious) position\nof any thinker; and need not, therefore, occasion any trouble to the\nNatural Theologian. But it is worth while to observe how rashly, on\naccount of some such scientific discussion, a writer is said to be a\nMaterialist or no Materialist, by persons who (understanding little\nor nothing of science themselves) drag the unhappy author outside the\npale of his own domain, and affix to him some religious or irreligious\nepithet which he has neither desired nor deserved.\n\nThe philosophic idealist often escapes; he is pronounced \"no\nMaterialist,\" because he doubts the substantive existence of Matter,\nyet he may and often does hold that the ideal thing he calls his soul,\nhas a life inextricably bound up with that other ideal thing he calls\nhis body, and must perish with it, never to live again.\n\nWe may add the useful remark that so far as Ethico-religious\nMaterialism is concerned it is much more easily tested by the\nDoctrine of Soul than the Doctrine of Body. For example, consistent\nMaterializers will always maintain that the reasoning human soul\ndiffers from the animal soul of brutes, not in quality, but in\nquantity. Dr. L. B\u00fcchner (sometimes called a \"crass Materialist\")\nmakes this assertion repeatedly, and explains it by adding--\"Man has\nno absolute advantage above the animal; his mental superiority being\nmerely relative. There is not one intellectual faculty which belongs to\nman _exclusively_; his superiority is merely the result of the greater\nintensity, and the proper combination, of his capacities. The enlarged\nhuman faculties are, as we have already seen, the natural and necessary\nresult of the higher and more perfect development of his material organ\nof thought.\"[147]\n\nTurning to a more refined species of Materialism, we find a similar\nvalue always placed on the dogma that whatever differences exist\nbetween man and brute, they amount to a distinction not of kind, but\nonly of degree. The consequences hence deduced are of the very greatest\nimportance, and they run much as follows. No one will venture to assert\nthat the power of what has been hastily called Volition is, or can be,\nan endowment of mere animal nature. We do not lay upon the tiger (as we\ndo popularly lay upon the tyrant) a moral responsibility on account of\nhis savage appetites. Their indulgence does not flow from any reasoning\nfaculty of Will. His cruelty is the movement of automatic instincts,\ngoverned by laws like those which rule over the inanimate world; more\ncomplicated probably, but no-ways different in their essence. The\nfall of a stone, and the spring of a tiger, are both consequences of\ndetermining laws inherent in their several modes of existence, and\nmoving both as machinery is moved by a steam engine. Now, a difference\nin degree only, argues no difference in those essential laws which\nrule equally the greater and the less. The giant and the dwarf are\nalike subject to the same laws of body and mind; and man is (as we have\nseen) but a mentally taller brute. The tyrant, therefore, resembles\nthe tiger; the human animal is moved as the other animals are moved,\nand, like them, is subject to the determining law, just as the lifeless\nworld is so subjected. In plain words, then, this human machine is\nmoved like other machines. What we call Reason, spontaneity, volition,\nare, when analysed, no exceptions to the law-governed mechanism of the\nworld we live in. Our motives make us, not we our motives. The faculty\nwe exercise under the name of Choice, is really neither more nor less\nthan a determined, unalterable, impulsion; the result of a mechanical\nlaw. And this law has formed and now constitutes the Universe.[148]\n\nRefined Materialism proceeds to ask in the next place, what more do\nwe know of Matter than its rigid undeviating reign of Law?--The great\nGlobe itself obeys the same Laws as the falling stone: they pervade\nand direct the mechanism of the starry heavens. Life does not exempt\neither vegetable or animal from the same rule of law. We have just\nseen that Mankind is _not_ so made to differ, as to permit a plea of\nexemption from the same empire. Ascend from Protoplasm to the highest\nhuman intelligence,--one heritage devolves through brute to man. The\nsame mechanical law accounts for the \"Psychogeny\" of both. Mechanical\nLaw, in its ramifications, is (as has been said) all we really know\nof Matter. It now turns out that all Mind has been developed by this\nsame ever-ramifying law; may be analyzed back into its elements; is\nmost truly expressed by its symbols; and can never be exempted from its\ndeterminations. Mind, therefore, and Matter are resolvable into this\nsole unity--the Law of ultimate mechanical movement and impulsion.\n\nWe have called this system a refined Materialism; but another name for\none of its most influential shapes has appeared and made considerable\nprogress, particularly on the continent of Europe. This name is Monism;\nand is intended to declare that every other belief must be at best a\nDualism.[149]\n\nWhat then is the true human meaning of this Monistic creed? Our souls\n(if we have souls), possess the image, not of Absolute Being and\nPersonality, but of abstract Fate, and rayless, eyeless Necessity.\nWe live machines; those supposed moralities we commonly miscall\nour Volitions, spring out from beneath the moving wheels. We die,\nas machines go to pieces when the wheels get out of gear; and no\nother account need be asked of the broken clock-work. Here lies a\nman, close beside him moulders a dog. They are now what they always\nwere,--copartners in the same inexorable destiny.\n\nInexorable:--yes; for, standing beside these two graves, we see where\nour higher Philosophy and our religious hopes alike lie buried. What\nis Mechanical Law to us? The antithesis of Providence; therefore, with\nthe edict which proclaims its sway, all our prayers are ended. And\nwhat is Man, compared with the equal dog who bears him company? One\nevent befals them both; yet we may ask whether before or after that one\nevent, Man has or can have any preeminence above the beast? Let him\nbe spoken of as statesman, warrior, orator, poet, painter, sculptor,\nmusician; none of these epithets convey any truth. He may possibly be\na speaking, striking, weaving, drawing, colouring, sound-producing\nmachine. But the Designer of the Universe and the human artist have\ndisappeared together. What we took for the author of immortal works,\nan original genius, an inspired hero of his kind, \"a man and a leader\nof men,\" was a piece of wheel-work driven by unalterable law. There\nwas the same \"must be\" to him as to his dog. There never was and never\ncould have been, nor yet ever will be any _essential_ difference; two\nspirits are gone downwards to the earth.\n\nMan has not even the sad preeminence of Sin. Where can he find or make\nroom for wrong-doing, when impelling Mechanism determines all? And\nwhere Sin is not, Repentance cannot come.\n\nHope is shut out along with Remorse and its unmeaning pains. Man has no\nladder of ascent left him; and why should he wish to climb? If there\nwere such a ladder as Jacob dreamed, its base must rest on lifeless\nLaw, and at its summit there would only be this same Law, enthroned and\nDeified.\n\nThus, when the prim\u00e6val Nebula arose in Space (how or why it arose\nis not told us), its vapoury Law contained all that is, and all that\ncan be:--Plato and Shakespeare, Moses and St. John glimmered in its\ntremulous twilight. Worlds inanimate and animate scintillated from\nits fires. What we call Heaven and Earth are its dumb children, its\nlaw-determined Evolutions. Thou and I, O reader, have harboured\nstrange fancies;--let them go;--we are but parts of the Whole; and\nthe Whole is a mechanical Unity. Now that we find ourselves disabused\nand illuminated, our great difficulty may perhaps be to fall down,\nStrauss-like, and worship this _Universum_. Can such worship, or such\nan object of worship, bless and satisfy our high aspiring race? Eyes\nthat have watched for Righteousness, hearts that have yearned after\nit, let the answer come from you! In this answer lives or dies the\ntwofold belief of the Natural Theologian, the twofold hope resulting\nto Mankind. The belief, that is to say, in a personal Immortality, the\nbelief in a personal God.\n\nIt may now seem plain that the readiest test of moral or religious\nMaterialism is its doctrine, not of Body but of Soul. There is no\ncharm in such a word as Matter to differentiate the character of\na philosophy. Looking at the material world, any thinker may be a\nNatural Realist or a Pure Idealist; yet being either or neither, he\nmay materialize, or the reverse, so far as Morals and Religion are\nconcerned. The simple question ought rather to be; Is man mechanically\ngoverned by the Law which rules the world of Abiology (the lifeless\ninorganic world), or is he, can he become, a Law unto himself?[150]\n\nIt would be unfair to omit impressing upon the reader's mind\nthat physical science _per se_ is by no means answerable for\nethico-religious Materialism. As a question of fact, it does not seem\nestablished that students of Nature, whether physicists or biologists,\nhave, as such, been the chief offenders. On the contrary, for every\nsingle instance of the kind, it seems quite probable that at least\n_two_ metaphysical writers might be found guilty. Obviously, some such\nlarge proportion may reasonably be expected, when we consider that\nDeterminism, (the word Mill and others prefer to Necessity), is a\ntheory involving a certain kind of metaphysics.\n\nBut the really largest crop of materializers arises from a Debateable\nLand. There is a hybrid class of \"thinkers,\" concerning whom the best\nphysical-science authorities allege that \"such nebulous rascals are\nmere metaphysicians,\" while metaphysical speculators, pure and simple,\nfeel quite sure that \"though under a cloud, the gentlemen must be\nPhysicists.\"[151]\n\nSo far as Biology[152] is concerned, let the reader compare Mr.\nHerbert Spencer's latest utterances already referred to, (in _Essays_,\nVol. III. _sub. fin._, especially pp. 249-50), with the following\npassages from Mr. Huxley. \"I suppose if there be an 'iron' law, it\nis that of gravitation; and if there be a physical necessity, it is\nthat a stone, unsupported, must fall to the ground. But what is all we\nreally know and can know about the latter phenomenon? Simply, that,\nin all human experience, stones have fallen to the ground under these\nconditions; that we have not the smallest reason for believing that\nany stone so circumstanced will not fall to the ground; and that we\nhave, on the contrary, every reason to believe that it will so fall.\nIt is very convenient to indicate that all the conditions of belief\nhave been fulfilled in this case, by calling the statement that\nunsupported stones will fall to the ground, 'a law of nature.' But\nwhen, as commonly happens, we change _will_ into _must_, we introduce\nan idea of necessity which most assuredly does not lie in the observed\nfacts, and has no warranty that I can discover elsewhere. For my part,\nI utterly repudiate and anathematize the intruder. Fact I know; and\nLaw I know; but what is this Necessity, save an empty shadow of my own\nmind's throwing? But if it is certain that we can have no knowledge of\nthe nature of either matter or spirit, and that the notion of necessity\nis something illegitimately thrust into the perfectly legitimate\nconception of law, the materialistic position that there is nothing in\nthe world but matter, force, and necessity, is as utterly devoid of\njustification as the most baseless of theological dogmas.\" (\"On the\nPhysical Basis of Life,\" _Lay Sermons_, pp. 157-8.)\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd again (pp. 159-60):--\n\n\"We live in a world which is full of misery and ignorance, and the\nplain duty of each and all of us is to try to make the little corner he\ncan influence somewhat less miserable and somewhat less ignorant than\nit was before he entered it. To do this effectually it is necessary\nto be fully possessed of only two beliefs: the first, that the order\nof nature is ascertainable by our faculties to an extent which is\npractically unlimited; the second, that our volition counts for\nsomething as a condition of the course of events.\n\n\"Each of these beliefs can be verified experimentally, as often as we\nlike to try. Each, therefore, stands upon the strongest foundation upon\nwhich any belief can rest, and forms one of our highest truths. If we\nfind that the ascertainment of the order of nature is facilitated by\nusing one terminology, or one set of symbols, rather than another, it\nis our clear duty to use the former; and no harm can accrue, so long as\nwe bear in mind, that we are dealing merely with terms and symbols.\"\n\nSymbols, are to the true philosopher like old-fashioned copper\n\"tokens,\" privately impressed with letters and devices, but lacking the\nRoyal image and superscription. They are, as Spencer and Huxley agree,\n\"unknown quantities;\"--relativities not entities. They are employable\nenough where they suit,[153] provided Mr. Huxley's _caveat_ (p. 161)\nis steadily kept in mind. \"The errors of systematic materialism may\nparalyze the energies and destroy the beauty of a life.\"\n\nThe reader may be pleased to put the subject of Materialism before\nhimself in a compendious shape as follows:--If the question asked be,\n\"_What_ is Matter?\" the answer appears little likely to be of moment\nto morals or Natural Theology, except so far as human ignorance is\nmade a plea for Scepticism. But, if it is inquired, \"whether the\n_Mechanical_ Laws of Matter are the laws of Universal Nature, including\nhuman nature? the issue becomes most momentous. The reply made, answers\nanother question of the deepest interest:--\"Are there any conditions\nunder which a Science of Natural Theology is possible?\" If Mechanism be\nthe law of the Universe, Natural Theology is plainly impossible.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[88] Professor Max M\u00fcller writes as follows.--\"If philosophy has to\nexplain what is, not what ought to be, there will be and can be no\nrest till we admit, what cannot be denied, that there is in man a\n(third) faculty, which I call simply the faculty of apprehending the\nInfinite, not only in religion, but in all things; a power independent\nof sense and reason, a power in a certain sense contradicted by sense\nand reason, but yet a very real power, which has held its own from the\nbeginning of the world, neither sense nor reason being able to overcome\nit, while it alone is able to overcome both reason and sense.\" _Max\nMuller's Lectures on the Science of Religion_.--Lect. I. New Ed. p. 20.\nThe use of the word faculty is defended in a note.\n\nI quote this passage with pleasure, because one main objection brought\nagainst the possible existence of such a faculty is taken from the\n_negative form_ of the word Infinite. The Professor maintains that, as\na question of Philology, Infinite signifies an affirmative idea. In his\nLectures on Language, second series, p. 576. he writes thus. \"There is\nno Infinite, we are told, for as there is a Finite, the Infinite has\nits limit in the Finite, it cannot be Infinite. Now all this is mere\nplaying on words without thoughts. Why is infinite a negative idea?\nBecause _infinite_ is derived from _finite_ by means of the negative\nparticle _in_! But this is a mere accident, it is a fact in the history\nof language, and no more. The same idea may be expressed by the\nPerfect, the Eternal, the Self-existing, which are positive terms, or\ncontain at least no negative element. That negative words may express\npositive ideas was known perfectly to Greek philosophers such as\nChrysippus, and they would as little have thought of calling _immortal_\na negative idea as they would have considered _blind_ positive. The\ntrue idea of the Infinite is neither a negation nor a modification\nof any other idea. The Finite, on the contrary, is in reality the\nlimitation or modification of the Infinite, nor is it possible, if we\nreason in good earnest, to conceive of the Finite in any other sense\nthan as the shadow of the Infinite. Even Language will confess to this,\nif we cross-examine her properly.\" He adds a happy quotation from\nRoger Bacon: \"'et dicitur infinitum non per privationem terminorum\nquantitatis, sed per negationem corruptionis et non esse.' Oxford of\nthe nineteenth century need not be ashamed, as far as metaphysics are\nconcerned, of Oxford of the thirteenth.\" Coleridge's theory of the\nIntuitive reason is well known to most readers.\n\n[89] Metaph. XII. 7.\n\n[90] Hamilton's Discussions, vol. 1. Art. 1.\n\n[91] Very few people have ever sate down and sturdily endeavoured to\nrealize before their mind's eye, the distinct idea of any _other_\nmind separate from themselves and independently subsistent. A short\ntrial will shew the difficulty, perhaps impossibility of the proposed\nrealization.\n\nAny one who tries and fails, may be glad to learn that eminent\nmetaphysicians have retreated in despair from the task of justifying,\nby _argument_, our belief in any minds other than our own. To common\nsense, it may seem a natural inquiry whether this metaphysical failure\nholds _morally, in foro conscienti\u00e6_, as a valid excuse for most men's\nneglect of other men's rights and interests? If _not_, it would appear\nthat morality is a more delicate test of certainty, than some sorts of\nmetaphysics.\n\n[t] For the information of some readers, and the entertainment of\nothers, a few of the less popularized theories respecting Self-ness or\nPersonal Identity are thrown into Additional Note A.\n\n[u] Nothing is more common in conversation than for a talker to\naffirm that such and such a position must be _untrue_ \"because it\nis inconceivable.\" The assertor ought in return to be asked one or\ntwo questions, _e.g._, \"Do you mean inconceivable to yourself or to\nthe generality of Mankind?\" If the latter, \"Is the contradictory\nalso inconceivable?\" Again, \"Do you mean by the word inconceivable,\n_unthinkable_ or _unimaginable_?\" Few people clearly consider this last\ndistinction. Further, \"If unthinkable, is it absolutely so, or only\nvery difficult to think?\" And it seems likewise important to deliberate\nwhether any position ought to be pronounced absolutely unthinkable,\nunless the human mind lies under a stern necessity of thinking and\naccepting its contradictory.\n\n[92] \"Conceivable\" and other like expressions are always relative to\nconceiving minds; and what appears either conceivable or inconceivable\nto one mind, may be the contrary to another. A painter not only\nconceives,--but draws a Centaur, and places him feeding on a wide\nplain or sloping hill side. But, can the Physiologist conceive such a\nmonstrosity? The solution is easy; the painter thinks of his figure,\nthe physiologist of the structure; and this example furnishes a good\ncaution as to the use of similar words.\n\nFrom words we may pass to ideas. Take any conception involving the\ncondition of Time or Space,--(those two optical tubes of our mind's\nperceiving eye),--and place it before the understanding; first as\na _Finite_ and next as an _Infinite_. The result is a conflict of\narguments, ending in a contradiction of all possibility that _either_\nway the conception can be true. Any one moderately acquainted with\nKant's best-known work, is aware that, by thus treating the world's\nexistence, he raises overwhelming difficulties against its being\n_either_ limited or unlimited in extent;--eternal _or_ having a\ncommencement in duration;--(p. 338. Ed. Rosenkranz) yet, the world\n_does_ exist in fact. Kant goes on to subject other cosmological ideas\nto the same enigmatical reasoning, with the same consequences.\n\nSome readers of purely modern science, may illustrate this question\nof the \"_conceivable_\" by what has been written on that extraordinary\nriddle, the \"_four_ dimensions of space.\" They will see opinions _pro_\nand _con_ in an article by Professor Sylvester in Nature vol. 1. A\nnote (p. 238) contains one conclusion of the Professor's, interesting\nas _his_ answer to a question asked by us a few paragraphs back.\nHe says, \"If an Aristotle, or Descartes, or Kant assures me that\nhe recognises God in the conscience, I accuse my own blindness if\nI fail to see with him.... I acknowledge two separate sources of\nauthority,--the collective sense of mankind, and the illumination of\nprivileged intellects.\" Plato then may have really _seen_ more than\nLucretius--Coleridge more than Comte or Littr\u00e9.\n\n[v] The advantages and defects of the optical structure of our human\neyes have been carefully estimated by Helmholtz. He has also discussed\nthe difficulties attending eyesight considered as a sensation and\nperception. Extracts from his clear yet popular Lectures are given in\nAdditional Note B.\n\n[93] _Proceedings of the Royal Institution._ V. 456.\n\n[94] All theories of light require these immense numbers. Sir J.\nHerschel says there is no \"mode of conceiving the subject which does\nnot call upon us to admit the exertion of mechanical forces which may\nwell be termed infinite.\" The numeration in the text is a rough and\nready shape of statement at once intelligible. But it is interesting\nto view the subject more exactly.--Light travels in one second\n192,000 miles. Each mile contains 63,360 inches, and in each inch are\n39,000 waves of red light, calculated at their _mean_ length. Now,\nmultiply these three sets of figures together, and we get a rate of\n474,439,680,000,000 red waves per second. The mean length of a violet\nwave is the 1/57500th part of an inch; and by a like multiplication we\nfind a product of 699,494,400,000,000 of violet light-strokes thrown\nupon the retina in each second. The phrase \"_millions of millions_\"\nis used in the text, because few people realize the idea of any\narithmetical whole beyond a million.\n\n[95] \"What we hear\" writes Professor Max M\u00fcller \"when listening to\na chorus or a symphony is a commotion of elastic air, of which the\nwildest sea would give a very inadequate image. The lowest tone which\nthe ear perceives is due to about 30 vibrations in one second, the\nhighest to about 4,000. Consider then what happens in a _Presto_ when\nthousands of voices and instruments are simultaneously producing waves\nof air, each wave crossing the other, not only like the surface waves\nof the water, but like spherical bodies, and, as it would seem, without\nany perceptible disturbance; consider that each tone is accompanied\nby secondary tones, that each instrument has its peculiar _timbre_,\ndue to secondary vibrations; and, lastly, let us remember that all\nthis cross-fire of waves, all this whirlpool of sound, is moderated by\nlaws which determine what we call harmony, and by certain traditions\nor habits which determine what we call melody--both these elements\nbeing absent in the songs of birds--that all this must be reflected\nlike a microscopic photograph on the two small organs of hearing,\nand there excite not only perception, but perception followed by a\nnew feeling even more mysterious, which we call either pleasure or\npain; and it will be clear that we are surrounded on all sides by\nmiracles transcending all we are accustomed to call miraculous, and\nyet disclosing to the genius of an Euler or a Newton laws which admit\nof the most minute mathematical determination.\" _Science of Language_,\nSecond Series, p. 115.\n\n[96] There is a much more scientific mode of trying this experiment. A\ndescription of the instrument (Kaleidophone), and cuts of the figures\nproduced, may be seen in Tyndall on Sound, pp. 132. seq.\n\n[97] There is reason for believing that a large proportion of animal\neyes see much as ours do when in a normal state. Colour blindness\nis frequent in Man and occurs between red and green, yet a bull\ndistinguishes the two like a _healthy_, human being. He is allured by\nthe sight of a green field, and lashes himself into fury when a red rag\nis waved before him.\n\nThe eyes of insects are very far removed in structure from ours. A\nbutterfly's compound eye contains 17,000 tubes, that of the Mordella\nbeetle 25,000. Their perception of colours appears vivid and distinct.\nThey resemble birds, reptiles, and other creatures in choosing for\ntheir lairs and resting-places objects _coloured like themselves_.\nIt is not difficult to mount one of these compound eyes, so as to\nlook through it by aid of a lens placed in focus. Leeuwenhoeck looked\nthrough the eye of a dragon fly (made up of 12,544 tubes), \"and viewed\nthe steeple of a church which was 299 feet high, and 750 feet from the\nplace where he stood. He could plainly see the steeple, though not\napparently larger than the point of a fine needle. He also viewed a\nhouse in the same manner, and could discern the front, distinguish the\ndoors and windows, and perceive whether they were open or shut.\" See\n_Insect Miscellanies_, p. 129.\n\n[98] Two points connected with colour admit of being easily\nexperimented on, and deserve from their interest to be made the\nsubjects of repeated observations.\n\nThe first has relation to the question of _primary_ colours;--are they\nalike in man and in _all_ the lower animals?--In birds and reptiles\nthere are anatomical reasons for believing the primaries to be red,\nyellow, and blue. But are they the same in our race?--may they not\nmore probably be red, green, and violet? In this case yellow is the\ntransition from red to green, blue from green to violet. As colour\nblindness consists in an insensibility to red, and as the outer circle\nof the field of vision is feeble in its reds, the number of experiments\nwhich might be suggested is evidently considerable.\n\nLet a person place two threads respectively red and green near the\nbridge of the nose, so as to be seen by the inner angle of the pupil\nonly. If dexterously moved, both seem green;--if not, both will in\ntime become black. Where the want of sensitive appreciation of red is\ngreat, the same result follows in every part of the field of sight.\nThus reverend gentlemen in former times have been induced to wear\nscarlet hose under the impression that they had put on black silk;\nand in these railroad days many persons find themselves unable to\ndistinguish between the safety and the danger signal lights. It seems\nstrange indeed that any scientific advisers of railway Boards should\nhave recommended for use the two colours, above all others, most likely\nto get confounded.\n\nThe theory which supposes red, green, and violet to be Man's three\nprimary colours is the hypothesis of our great countryman Dr. Thomas\nYoung, and deserves much more consideration than was for a long time\nawarded it. If we may judge of his theory by his appreciation of\npictures it must have been excellent;--the present writer saw with\nadmiration in 1845 the grand series of Reynolds' portraits which Dr.\nYoung had left behind him.\n\nThe second topic of interest is the inquiry into the number and tone\nof subjective colours. A perfect theory of colour ought, of course, to\nembrace all possible human sensations of the kind. Now many persons\nare able to see in dreams a rich amber light far softer and more pure\nthan any tint ever beheld by the Eye. It generally appears to irradiate\nSpace, and silvery figures, most often the celestial orbs, float within\nit. A still more beautiful production of reflex energy exerted after\ntranquil rest is the blending of delicate green with a hyacinthine hue\nquite strange to this world, and indescribably lovely in its tender\nshadings off. By means of this subjective activity the experiments of\nGoethe and J. M\u00fcller may be varied almost _ad libitum_. The easiest\nplan is on first waking to keep the eyelids steadily closed, and\nwatch for the unbidden rise of tints. Persons of strong pictorial and\npoetic powers can, after some practice, control their appearance and\nsuccession; and much diversity may be produced by slightly separating\nthe fringe of eyelashes and looking between the loosely pressed\nfingers. The remarkable point in these and similar experiments seems to\nbe that we are thus enabled to gaze upon beauties more marvellous than\nthe outward eye ever beheld--yet we _see_ them.\n\nAnother and a painful source of knowledge on this subject consists\nin registering the visual impressions of persons bodily or mentally\ndiseased. The difference between these and the normal impressions of\nhealthy people would seem to arise from reflex action, the disordered\nsensory or mind reacting upon the optic apparatus; or, as it may\nbe said, the centre of our being is through these aberrations made\nmanifest in its control of the circumference.\n\nNow, it will be obvious to any reflective person how very important\nall information we can acquire respecting this central empire over the\nimpressions of our sense-nerves may become when we try to estimate the\nconditions of human knowledge. If it be true that the Mind imposes\nlaws of activity on the nervous system even when receiving impressions\nfrom it, then the necessity we are under of _thinking_ in accordance\nwith certain inly imposed laws receives a most striking illustration.\nAnd the inference from it carries an _a fortiori_ probability\nsince our thoughts lie nearer to our mental centre than any of our\nsense-impressions.\n\n[99] Nerves of common feeling are acutely sensitive when divided, and\nthe patient animal under a Majendie or a dentist utters a sharp shriek.\nThe case is different with motor nerves, with those of the sympathetic\nsystem, and with (what is more to our purpose) nerves of sensation. It\nseems clear that mechanical injuries, or even touches, excite them in\nthe direction of their own special functions. Auditory nerves feel a\nshock as a sound,--optic nerves receive it as a sudden and brilliant\nlight. We are doubly assured from these effects of the true functions\nbelonging to the several sets of nerves. Disease and injury are great\ndiscoverers of what ought to be healthy susceptibilities. In such\ncases, however, they prove also something more agreeable to think upon.\nThey prove that suffering is confined within definite limits, and that\n_economy_ of pain forms part of the universal design, for the sensitive\nanimal as well as the sensitive man. If all our nerves shrank equally\nwith equal tenderness, life would be a history of protracted agony. Yet\none might have expected, _prim\u00e2 facie_, that a fibre which telegraphs\nshapes and colours with their blendings, would eloquently tell the\nstory of its own occasional anguish. And our whole nervous framework\nmight have been conceived as an instrument of torture. It has not been\nso constituted.\n\n_Per contra_, the nerves of common feeling assert their own\nvocation.--\"A brazen canstick turned\" sets the teeth on edge, and\ntroubles the skin with horripilation. Believers in ghosts--and also\ndisbelievers--are aware that some sights\n\n    \"Make knotted and combined locks to part,\n    And each particular hair to stand on end.\"\n\nFor extended information on this subject compare Additional Note C.\n\n[100] Aristotle so described it before Mr. Bain and other modern\nwriters, \"[Greek: to gar horaton esti chr\u00f4ma],\" De Anima II. 7. 1.\nAs Kampe carefully observes, \"so ist die Farbe (nicht die gef\u00e4rbten\nK\u00f6rper) das Eigenth\u00fcmliche des Gesichtssinns.\" See also his note,\nErkenntnisstheorie des Aristoteles, p. 88.\n\n[w] Compare Helmholtz on \"The Sensation of Sight,\" _Lectures_, pp. 256,\n7, and 259.\n\n\"We have already seen enough to answer the question whether it is\npossible to maintain the natural and innate conviction that the quality\nof our sensations, and especially our sensations of sight, give us a\ntrue impression of corresponding qualities in the outer world. It is\nclear that they do not. The question was really decided by Johannes\nM\u00fcller's deduction from well ascertained facts of the law of specific\nnervous energy. Whether the rays of the sun appear to us as colour,\nor as warmth, does not at all depend upon their own properties, but\nsimply upon whether they excite the fibres of the optic nerve, or\nthose of the skin. Pressure upon the eyeball, a feeble current of\nelectricity passed through it, a narcotic drug carried to the retina\nby the blood, are capable of exciting the sensation of light just as\nwell as the sunbeams. The most complete difference offered by our\nseveral sensations, that namely between those of sight, of hearing,\nof taste, of smell, and of touch--this deepest of all distinctions,\nso deep that it is impossible to draw any comparison of likeness, or\nunlikeness, between the sensations of colour and of musical tones--does\nnot, as we now see, at all depend upon the nature of the external\nobject, but solely upon the central connections of the nerves which\nare affected.... But not only uneducated persons, who are accustomed\nto trust blindly to their senses, even the educated, who know that\ntheir senses may be deceived, are inclined to demur to so complete a\nwant of any closer correspondence in kind between actual objects and\nthe sensations they produce than the law I have just expounded. For\ninstance, natural philosophers long hesitated to admit the identity\nof the rays of light and of heat, and exhausted all possible means of\nescaping a conclusion which seemed to contradict the evidence of their\nsenses.\n\n\"Another example is that of Goethe, as I have endeavoured to show\nelsewhere. He was led to contradict Newton's theory of colours,\nbecause he could not persuade himself that white, which appears to\nour sensation as the purest manifestation of the brightest light,\ncould be composed of darker colours. It was Newton's discovery of the\ncomposition of light that was the first germ of the modern doctrine\nof the true functions of the senses; and in the writings of his\ncontemporary, Locke, were correctly laid down the most important\nprinciples on which the right interpretation of sensible qualities\ndepends. But, however clearly we may feel that here lies the difficulty\nfor a large number of people, I have never found the opposite\nconviction of certainty derived from the senses so distinctly expressed\nthat it is possible to lay hold of the point of error: and the reason\nseems to me to lie in the fact that beneath the popular notions on the\nsubject lie other and more fundamentally erroneous conceptions.\"\n\n[101] Is there, asks Idealistic Scepticism, any outside world at all?\n\nWe have all of us always believed in the veritable existence of this\noutside world from our childhood. So have we believed always in our own\nreal and continued personal existence. The unyielding objectivities\nconcerning which our senses inform us--the identical Self which\nreceives their information--are entities no man ordinarily thinks of\ncalling in question.\n\nLet any one sit down and try to imagine himself a human animal let\nloose upon life without a firm belief in either of these two primary\nconvictions. What could life be to him? to his descendants? to the\nworld of men if similarly unbelieving? Yet what are the conditions\nor evidences of veracity upon which his and his fellows' present\nconvictions must necessarily repose? Can he and others help believing\nthem true? and why?--This \"why\" is a safe answer to the most plausible\nas well as the most refined objection against such primary beliefs as\nthose premised by Natural Theology.\n\n[102] Cheselden's case is reported in the Philosophical Transactions\nfor 1728, and also in his Anatomy. Respecting the point above quoted he\nis confirmed by Mr. Nunneley, \"_On the Organs of Vision_,\" 1858.\n\n[103] See Dr. Carpenter's Principles of Human Physiology. Ed. 7. p.\n713. \u00a7 635.\n\n[x] The following quaint apology for our senses at the expense of our\nunderstanding may be new to the majority of my readers:--\n\n\"We have seen two notorious instances of _sensitive deception_, which\njustifie the charge of _Petron. Arbiter_.\n\n    Fallunt nos oculi, vagique sensus\n    Oppress\u00e2 ratione mentiuntur.\n\nAnd yet to speak properly, and to do our _senses_ right, simply they\nare not deceived, but only administer an occasion to our forward\n_understandings_ to deceive themselves: and so though they are some\nway accessory to our delusion; yet the more principal faculties are\nthe _Capital offenders_. Thus if the _Senses_ represent the _Earth_ as\n_fixt_ and _immoveable_; they give us the truth of their _Sentiments_:\nTo _sense_ it is _so_, and it would be deceit to present it otherwise.\nFor (as we have shewn) though it do _move_ in itself; it _rests_ to us,\nwho are carry'd with it.... But if hence our Understandings falsely\ndeduct, that there is the same quality in the _external impressor_;\n'tis, it is _criminal_, our _sense_ is _innocent_. When the _Ear_\ntingles, we really hear a _sound_: If we judge it without us, it's\nthe fallacy of our _Judgments_. The _apparitions_ of our frighted\n_Phancies_ are real _sensibles_: But if we translate them without the\ncompass of our Brains, and apprehend them as external objects; it's\nthe unwary rashness of our _Understanding_ deludes us. And if our\ndisaffected Palates resent nought but bitterness from our choicest\nviands, we truly tast the unpleasing quality, though falsely conceive\nit in that, which is no more then the occasion of its production. If\nany find fault with the novelty of the notion; the learned St. _Austin_\nstands ready to confute the charge: and they who revere _Antiquity_,\nwill derive satisfaction from so venerable a suffrage. He tells us,\n_Si quis remum frangi in aqu\u00e2 opinatur, et, cum_ _aufertur, integrari;\nnon malum habet internuncium, sed malus est Judex_. And onward to this\npurpose, The sense could not otherwise perceive it in the _water_,\nneither ought it: For since the _Water_ is one thing, and the _Air_\nanother; 'tis requisite and necessary, that the _sense_ should be as\ndifferent as the _medium_: Wherefore the Eye sees aright; if there be\na mistake, 'tis the Judgement's the Deceiver. Elsewhere he saith, that\nour Eyes misinform us not, but faithfully transmit their resentment to\nthe mind. And against the _Scepticks_, That it's a piece of injustice\nto complain of our _senses_, and to exact from them an account, which\nis beyond the sphear of their notice: and resolutely determines,\n_Quicquid possunt videre oculi, verum vident_. So that what we have\nsaid of the _senses deceptions_, is rigidly to be charg'd only on our\ncareless Understandings, misleading us through the ill management of\nsensible informations.\" Glanvill, _Vanity of Dogmatizing_. Chap. x.\nFirst Ed. p. 91, seq.\n\nThe reader may like to consider how far Glanvill's apology for the\nsenses is removed from the following propositions laid down by a recent\nwriter just quoted who thus defends while he limits the veracity of\nsense-impressions:--\n\n\"What we directly apprehend,\" writes Professor Helmholtz, \"is not\nthe immediate action of the external exciting cause upon the ends\nof our nerves, but only the changed condition of the nervous fibres\nwhich we call the state of _excitation_ or functional activity.\" And\nfurther on:--\"The simple rule for all illusions of sight is this: _we\nalways believe that we see such objects as would, under conditions\nof normal vision, produce the retinal image of which we are actually\nconscious_. If these images are such as could not be produced by any\nnormal kind of observation, we judge of them according to their nearest\nresemblance; and in forming this judgment, we more easily neglect the\nparts of sensation which are imperfectly than those which are perfectly\napprehended. When more than one interpretation is possible, we usually\nwaver involuntarily between them; but it is possible to end this\nuncertainty by bringing the idea of any of the possible interpretations\nwe choose as vividly as possible before the mind by a conscious effort\nof the will.\" Helmholtz on _The Recent Progress of the Theory of\nVision_. pp. 230, 31 and p. 307.\n\n[104] Two acute reasoners, who will be alternately acquitted of\nmadness by contending schools of thought, have arrived at conclusions\nvery favourable to the sanity of idealizing men. In his first lecture\nat the Royal Institution, Professor Masson spoke in the following\nterms of _Hume_ and _Fichte_. \"There is the system of Nihilism, or,\nas it may be better called, Non-Substantialism. According to this\nsystem, the Ph\u00e6nomenal Cosmos, whether regarded as consisting of\ntwo parallel successions of ph\u00e6nomena (Mind _and_ Matter), or of\nonly one (Mind _or_ Matter), resolves itself, on analysis, into an\nabsolute Nothingness,--mere appearances with no credible substratum of\nReality; a play of phantasms in a void. If there have been no positive\nor dogmatic Nihilists, yet both Hume for one purpose, and Fichte\nfor another, have propounded Nihilism as the ultimate issue of all\nreasoning that does not start with some _\u00e0 priori_ postulate.\"--Recent\nBritish Philosophy, p. 66. The reader will observe that to raise the\nquestion fully, we have spoken of the special form of Idealism to\nwhich Mr. Mill gives the first place in his description, (Examination\nof Hamilton's Philosophy, p. 8.) \"According to one of the forms, the\nsensations which, in common parlance, we are said to receive from\nobjects, are not only all that we can possibly know of the objects, but\nare all that we have any ground for believing to exist.----Those who\nhold this opinion are said to doubt or deny the existence of matter.\nThey are sometimes called by the name Idealists, sometimes by that of\nSceptics, according to the other opinions which they hold. They include\nthe followers of Berkeley and those of Hume. Among recent thinkers,\nthe acute and accomplished Professor Ferrier, though by a circuitous\npath, and expressing himself in a very different phraseology, seems to\nhave arrived at essentially the same point of view. These philosophers\nmaintain the Relativity of our knowledge in the most extreme form in\nwhich the doctrine can be understood, since they contend, not merely\nthat all we can possibly know of anything is the manner in which it\naffects the human faculties, but that there is nothing else to be\nknown; that affections of human or of some other minds are all that we\ncan know to exist.\"\n\nMr. Mill's own position will be found in his 11th Chapter. After\ndefining Matter to be a \"Permanent Possibility of Sensation,\" (p.\n227) and explaining his definition, he writes in a note (p. 232),\nthe following decisive sentences: \"My able American critic, Dr. H.\nB. Smith, contends through several pages that these facts afford no\nproofs that objects _are_ external to us. I never pretended that they\ndo. I am accounting for our conceiving, or representing to ourselves,\nthe Permanent Possibilities as real objects external to us. I do not\nbelieve that the real externality to us of anything, except other\nminds, is capable of proof.\"\n\nMr. O'Hanlon's pamphlet entitled \"A Criticism of John Stuart Mill's\nPure Idealism; and an attempt to shew that, if logically carried out,\nit is Pure Nihilism,\" seems less known than it deserves to be. Mr.\nMill noticed and answered it in his 3rd Edition--chiefly among the\ncriticisms commencing p. 244.----Mr. O'Hanlon's early decease has\ngiven a painful interest to his promising labours. Some paragraphs from\nhis now scarce pamphlet are placed at the end of Additional Note D, on\n\"Pure Idealism.\"\n\n[105] _On Hamilton._ p. 6. Mill is thus echoed from across the\nbroad Atlantic;--\"The profoundest question of philosophy turns\non the relation of Thought to Being, Mind to Matter, Subject to\nObject, or (in empiricistic phrase) Organism to Environment. Is\nthe Organism purely the product of the Environment? Then we have\nEmpiricism, Sensationalism, Materialism, whose motto is that of\nDestutt-Tracy,--\"_Penser c'est sentir_.\" Is the Environment the product\nof the Organism? Then we have Transcendentalism, Egoism, Idealism,\nwhose motto is that of Berkeley,--\"The _esse_ of objects is _percipi_.\"\nF. E. Abbot, in _The Index_ (American), for July 27, 1872.\n\n[106] Lord Macaulay has some pertinent and characteristic remarks\nconcerning this topic in his literary estimate of Dr. Johnson. \"How\nit chanced that a man who reasoned on his premises so ably, should\nassume his premises so foolishly, is one of the great mysteries of\nhuman nature. The same inconsistency may be observed in the schoolmen\nof the middle ages. Those writers show so much acuteness and force\nof mind in arguing on their wretched data, that a modern reader is\nperpetually at a loss to comprehend how such minds came by such data.\nNot a flaw in the superstructure of the theory which they are rearing\nescapes their vigilance. Yet they are blind to the obvious unsoundness\nof the foundation. It is the same with some eminent lawyers. Their\nlegal arguments are intellectual prodigies, abounding with the happiest\nanalogies and the most refined distinctions. The principles of their\narbitrary science being once admitted, the statute-book and the reports\nbeing once assumed as the foundations of reasoning, these men must\nbe allowed to be perfect masters of logic. But if a question arises\nas to the postulates on which their whole system rests, if they are\ncalled upon to vindicate the fundamental maxims of that system which\nthey have passed their lives in studying, these very men often talk\nthe language of savages or of children.\" (_Essays_, Ed. 1852. p. 175.)\nAs to the schoolmen, any one who wishes to form a fair idea of their\nacuteness with little trouble to himself, may consult the \"Synopsis\nDistinctionum\" of H. L. Castan\u00e6us, a book found in most learned\nlibraries.\n\n[y] See Additional Note E.--The great interest of this subject for\nour purpose lies in the circumstance that the relation of Theory to\nFact is in effect a question most closely akin to the one already\nmooted concerning the relation of our Sensations to our Perceptions\n(compare Additional Note B). These two questions are indeed so very\nsimilar as to be in the main identical. What we want to learn regarding\nboth relations, is, _first_, the _extent_ of the relativity to our\nhuman nature; in other words how _much we_ have _mentally put_ into\nour Theories and Sensations _before_ we treat them as Facts and\nPerceptions. _Secondly_, what reason we have for believing _any_ of\nour knowledge comprehended under either or both of these relativities\n(Perception and Fact) to be true _beyond_ our human sphere; and, above\nall, whether we are able to assert, on good grounds, that such and such\nparts of either kind of our knowledge are absolutely and immutably\ntrue?--\n\nIf, for example, we ask--Is it thus true that there are real objects\nexternal to ourselves? \"I do not believe,\" Mr. Mill has told us, \"that\nthe real externality to us of anything, except other minds, is capable\nof proof.\" And a few lines further, \"The view I take of externality,\nin the sense in which I acknowledge it as real, could not be more\naccurately expressed than in Professor Fraser's words.\" These are \"For\nourselves we can conceive only--(1) An externality to our present\nand transient experience in _our own_ possible experience past and\nfuture, and (2) An externality to our own conscious experience, in the\ncontemporaneous, as well as in the past or future experience of _other\nminds_.\" (_On Hamilton._ p. 232, note.) This explanation, Mill had\njust before observed, is an externality in the only sense we need care\nabout; and it means in plain words, that we possess no absolutely true\nbut only some utilitarian knowledge of the real existence of an outside\nworld. We must, however, and do care infinitely more for another kind\nof answer to quite another kind of question. Is the antithesis between\nRight and Wrong,--the Moral Imperative \"Do this and live, transgress\nand die,\"--absolutely and immutably true? If not, who would calculate\nprofit and loss as they are calculated in the Gospel; who would or\ncould believe in a Righteous that is to say, a Real and True God?\n\nMany minds, appalled by the vastness of these issues, and finding no\nsatisfactory answer to questions of such infinite importance, have\nfallen back on the position of Dr. Newman in his _Grammar of Assent_.\nBut the unsatisfactory characteristic attaching to this position,\nis that there seems to be no _limit_ to such Assents, because there\nappears no Reasonable canon or maxim to explain, defend, and regulate\nthem. To the far larger number of minds the problem states itself\nas a dilemma. There are exactly two alternatives open to Man. His\nchoice lies between two contrasted positions--the most antagonistic\nconceivable, yet both resulting from one common supposed fact.\nIgnorance and impotence are the truest characters inscribed upon\nour Reason. Man must decide either for an unlimited Doubt such as\nthat which Hume delineates, wide as the universal whole of our human\nExistence; or else yield the kind of Assent to which Dr. Newman invites\nas being the sole secure refuge for any soul driven by despair into a\nrecoil from utter absence of belief and hope--the want of everything\nto trust and love. Now, let it be observed that an assent transcending\nreasonable proof is, in effect, a confession that Reason falls short\nof establishing those transcendental truths to which the mind has\nthus assented. And contrariwise, limitless Doubt making all else\nuncertain, affirms with unmistakeable decisiveness the impotence of\nhuman Reason.--\"The observation of human blindness and weakness,\" says\nHume, \"is the result of all philosophy, and meets us at every turn,\nin spite of our endeavours to elude or avoid it.\" Hence, we see that\nHume's conclusion is identical with that underlying a position directly\nantagonistic to his own, and in this respect _les extr\u00eames se touchent_.\n\nIt follows, then, with equal clearness, that any Dilemma which\nrestricts human choice to the two alternatives above stated, rests\nupon a denial that Man's Reason can guide Mankind to truth--(and by\nconsequence that he can ever feel after and find his God);--whilst,\nconversely, this same denial, if posited as a basis of speculation,\npermits no human choice beyond the two horns of a Dilemma thus made\nnecessarily imperative upon us all.\n\nNeither alternative, however, can be accepted by the Natural\nTheologian, nor can he possibly receive any such Dilemma as founded in\nTruth or Reason. On the one hand the Superhuman, and Supernatural lie\noutside his science which has for its sphere Nature, including Man's\nNature; and which steadily endeavours to attain the true interpretation\nand evidence yielded by both Natures, to a belief extending beyond\ntheir present territory and fluent conditions. On the other hand,\nhis science becomes impossible if unlimited Doubt is the sole dreary\nprospect open to the philosophic inquirer. And with his science all\nother sciences must perish. Doubt saps the foundations of them all;\ncommon-sense facts, scientific theories, and practical every-day\nbeliefs, are all impartially shewn to be baseless. So far as our\nrealities are concerned\n\n                        \"We are such stuff\n    As dreams are made on; and our little life\n    Is rounded with a sleep.\"\n\nScience is therefore an alien from Man's world; the soul an outcast\namid her own:--\n\n    \"As in strange lands a traveller walking slow,\n      In doubt and great perplexity,\n    A little before moon-rise hears the low\n      Moan of an unknown sea;\n\n    \"And knows not if it be thunder or a sound\n      Of stones thrown down, or one deep cry\n    Of great wild beasts; then thinketh, 'I have found\n      A new land, but I die.'\"\n\n\"Not for this,\" says the same reflective poet--\n\n                              \"Not for this\n    Was common clay ta'en from the common earth,\n    Moulded by God, and tempered with the tears\n    Of angels to the perfect shape of man.\"\n\nLet it be observed in conclusion, that the mode in which common-sense\npeople are accustomed to treat the primary tenets of most sciences, and\nthe validity of their own ordinary beliefs, may be placed in curious\ncontrast with their attitude towards the proofs of Natural Theology.\nIn the former case, acceptance is easy and wholesale; in the latter,\nevery mind seems to bristle with objections. Now there are evidently\nthousands who _must_ surrender their judgments to the demands of a\npresent and pressing utility, and must take upon trust a multitude\nof maxims which they can never hope to investigate. The difficulties\nnecessarily involved in each and all of these easy acceptations thus\nremain unsuspected, and cannot therefore be placed side by side with\nthe difficulties of Theism.\n\nBut, next arises a serious question. How far can a similar facility of\nwholesale acceptance and a similar absence of comparison with deeper\ntruths, be considered a philosophic or even a fair procedure in the\ncase of men and women who _think_ themselves into Atheism?\n\n[z] Neither can it be too often repeated that practical truth involves\nan enormous amount of speculative difficulty, and is received\nas the daily basis of human action in the face of doubts, which\nspeculatively considered are absolutely insoluble. There is (as will\nappear in Chapter IV.) reason to extend this remark beyond what is\ncommonly called practical truth far into the realm of speculative\nknowledge, or to speak more exactly, of all knowledge whatsoever.\nSuppose, for instance, the continuity of our inward power of receiving\nsense-impressions, of knowing, and reasoning; (our personal Identity)\nis a groundless belief;--Suppose too that our sense-impressions\nare reflections from self-created shadows and not from objective\nrealities;--_where_ can any knowledge be truly subsistent save in\nthat place of exile now generally termed \"the Unknowable\"? Compare\nAdditional Notes A and B appended to this present Chapter.\n\n[107] La Philosophie en France. IX. p. 66.\n\n[108] First Principles, p. 108.\n\n[109] Lay Sermon delivered on Sunday, Jan. 7, 1866; in the collected\nvol. pp. 19, 20.\n\n[110] Essays I. p. 190.\n\n[111] Ibid. p. 211.\n\n[aa] Mr. Herbert Spencer has been freely criticized by Americans, in\npart as not being sufficiently thorough--in part as being untrue to his\nown position. A few quotations will be found in Additional Note F, on\n\"The Unknowable.\"\n\n[ab] The paragraph, taken in its entireness, is pervaded with the vivid\nsense of a Moral Law which can neither change nor perish--a Law at once\nhuman and Divine. This strong protest is both in thought and expression\na complete contrast to the ordinary tone of Mr. Mill's disquisitions,\nattempered as they generally are between benevolence and expediency.\nInstead of pondering the Utilities of a race which, comparatively\nspeaking, began to exist yesterday, it appeals with decisive sternness,\nonce and for ever, to the Immutable and the Absolute. It reminds one of\na torch-bearing Prometheus pitted against the selfish despot of a new\nand morally enfeebled Olympus. See Additional Note G.\n\n[112] This sentence contains two propositions; the question of\nspeculative perplexity has been treated in this Chapter--that of\nreasonable necessity is reserved for our next.\n\n[113] On Hamilton, p. 242.\n\n[114] Mill on Hamilton, p. 232, note.\n\n[115] Ibid. p. 233, note.\n\n[116] Ibid. p. 227.\n\n[117] British Association Report, 1870. lxxvii. lxxxiv.\n\n[118] The remark above made respecting a \"_living laboratory_\" will\nbe readily understood by every one who remembers the great mistakes\ncommitted, some years ago, in treating the stomach as a mere chemical\nworkshop;--forgetful of its all-important endowment,--vitality. That\noversight has been alluded to here because it may yield a lesson to\nPsychologists; for may not a far higher kind of endowment in like\nmanner be forgotten when men materialize the principles one and all on\nwhich is conditioned the transforming power of mental assimilation?\n\n[119] Lay Sermons, p. 160.\n\n[120] And of more than one as we shall see hereafter. Its point will be\nbest understood upon a perusal of Additional Notes F and I.\n\n[121] All these quotations will be found between pp. 332 and 360 of the\nTreatise. Ed. 1817.\n\n[122] Compare Mr. Green's Introduction to Hume's _Treatise on Human\nNature_, Vol. I., pp. 263, seq., where he discusses the bearing of this\nsubject upon Hume's doctrine of Cause and Effect.\n\n[123] He sums up in the words of Goethe, thus given in the translation\nof his lectures from which we have quoted--\n\n    \"Woe! woe!\n    Thou hast destroyed\n    The beautiful world\n    With powerful fist;\n    In ruin 'tis hurled,\n    By the blow of a demigod shattered.\n    The scattered\n    Fragments into the void we carry,\n    Deploring\n    The beauty perished beyond restoring.\"\n\n\n[124] \"All the different sorts of rays which I have mentioned produce\none effect in common. They raise the temperature of the objects on\nwhich they fall, and accordingly are all felt by our skin as rays of\nheat.\" (p. 237.)\n\n[125] The former of these two latter quotations has been cited already\nin a foot-note on p. 164 _ante_. It is repeated here for the sake of\nbringing together Masson's classification of Fichte, first as \"_Pure_\nIdealist,\" and secondly as \"Nihilist.\" Mr. O'Hanlon's criticism of Mill\nreaches exactly the same goal as regards that subtle controversialist.\nHis position is that Mill's Pure Idealism when analysed, turns out to\nbe Pure Nihilism.\n\n[126] Compare Note B preceding.\n\n[127] In the pamphlet referred to p. 165 _ante_, note. The quotations\nin our text commence on its 5th page. The subject will be most easily\ncomprehended after a reperusal of the argument of Chap. III. pp.\n164-172 inclusive.\n\n[128] On p. 14 the ingenious writer adds a further argument based on\nMill's admissions. \"If the fire apart from my consciousness be some\npositive condition or conditions of warmth and light, if the corn be\nsome positive condition or conditions of food, my thesis is made out,\nand your Pure Idealism falls to the ground. If, on the other hand, 'the\nfire' be nothing positive apart from my consciousness, then, since it\nis nothing at all when so apart, you can have no right to speak of\n'modifications' taking place in it, whether we are asleep or awake,\npresent or absent.\"\n\n[129] It is worth observing how truly our Bishop anticipated the\nvulgar objection against his theory. Towards the end of his Dialogues\nHylas (who clings to the olden elemental nature) speaks thus: \"To say,\nThere is no Matter in the World, is still shocking to me. Whereas\nto say--There is no Matter, if by that Term be meant an unthinking\nSubstance existing without the Mind; but if by Matter is meant some\nsensible Thing, whose Existence consists in being perceived, then there\nis Matter:--this Distinction gives it quite another Turn; and Men will\ncome into your Notions with small Difficulty, when they are proposed in\nthat manner.\" Lord Byron condescended to repeat the \"coxcombs' grin\"--\n\n    \"When Bishop Berkeley said there was no matter,\n      And prov'd it--'twas no matter what he said.\"\n\n\n[130] Read for example the following eloquent passages from Berkeley's\n\"Three Dialogues.\" Philonous, who represents Berkeley himself, says:\n\"To me it is evident, for the Reasons you allow of, that sensible\nThings cannot exist otherwise than in a Mind or Spirit. Whence I\nconclude, not that they have no real Existence, but that seeing they\ndepend not on my Thought, and have an Existence distinct from being\nperceived by me, _there must be some other Mind wherein they exist_. As\nsure, therefore, as the sensible World really exists, so sure is there\nan infinite omnipresent Spirit who contains and supports it.\n\n\"Hylas. What! This is no more than I and all Christians hold; nay,\nand all others too who believe there is a God, and that he knows and\ncomprehends all Things.\n\n\"Phil. Ay, but here lies the Difference. Men commonly believe that all\nThings are known or perceived by God, because they believed the Being\nof a God, whereas I, on the other side, immediately and necessarily\nconclude the Being of a God, because all sensible Things must be\nperceived by Him.\n\n\"Hylas. But so long as we all believe the same thing, what matter is it\nhow we come by that Belief?\n\n\"Phil. But neither do we agree in the same Opinion. For Philosophers,\ntho' they acknowledge all corporeal Beings to be perceived by God, yet\nthey attribute to them an absolute Subsistence distinct from their\nbeing perceived by any Mind whatever, which I do not. Besides, is there\nno Difference between saying, _There is a God, therefore he perceives\nall Things_: and saying, _Sensible Things do really exist: and if they\nreally exist, they are necessarily perceived by an infinite Mind:\ntherefore there is an infinite Mind, or God?_ This furnishes you with a\ndirect and immediate Demonstration, from a most evident Principle, of\nthe _Being of a God_....\n\nHylas. It cannot be denied, there is something highly serviceable to\nReligion in what you advance. But do you not think it looks very like\na Notion entertained by some eminent Moderns, of _seeing all things in\nGod_?\n\nPhil. I would gladly know that Opinion; pray explain it to me.\n\nHylas. They conceive that the Soul, being immaterial, is incapable\nof being united with material Things, so as to perceive them in\nthemselves, but that she perceives them by her Union with the Substance\nof God, which being spiritual, is therefore purely intelligible, or\ncapable of being the immediate Object of a Spirit's Thought. Besides,\nthe Divine Essence contains in it Perfections correspondent to each\ncreated Being; and which are, for that Reason, proper to exhibit or\nrepresent them to the Mind.\n\nPhil. I do not understand how our Ideas, which are Things altogether\npassive and inert, can be the Essence, or any Part (or like any Part)\nof the Essence or Substance of God, who is an impassive, indivisible,\npurely active Being. Many more Difficulties and Objections there are,\nwhich occur at first View against this Hypothesis, but I shall only\nadd, that it is liable to all the Absurdities of the common Hypotheses\nin making a created World exist otherwise than in the Mind of a Spirit.\nBeside all which it has this peculiar to itself; that it makes that\nmaterial World serve to no Purpose. And if it pass for a good Argument\nagainst other Hypotheses in the Sciences, that they suppose Nature or\nthe Divine Wisdom to make something in vain, or do that by tedious\nround-about Methods, which might have been performed in a much more\neasy and compendious way, what shall we think of that Hypothesis which\nsupposes the whole World made in vain?\n\nHylas. But what say you, are not you too of Opinion that we see all\nThings in God? If I mistake not, what you advance comes near it.\n\nPhil. I entirely agree with what the Holy Scripture saith, _That in God\nwe live, and move, and have our Being_. But that we see Things in his\nEssence after the manner above set forth, I am far from believing. Take\nhere in brief my Meaning. It is evident that the Things I perceive are\nmy own Ideas, and that no Idea can exist, unless it be in a Mind. Nor\nis it less plain that these Ideas or Things by me perceived, either\nthemselves or their Archetypes exist independently of my Mind, since\nI know myself not to be their Author, it being out of my Power to\ndetermine at Pleasure what particular Ideas I shall be affected with\nupon opening my Eyes or Ears. They must therefore exist in some other\nMind, whose Will it is they should be exhibited to me. The Things, I\nsay, immediately perceived, are Ideas or Sensations, call them which\nyou will. But how can any Idea or Sensation exist in, or be produced\nby, anything but a Mind or Spirit? This, indeed, is inconceivable: and\nto assert that which is inconceivable, is to talk Nonsense: Is it not?.\n\nHylas. Without doubt.\n\nPhil. But on the other hand, it is very conceivable that they should\nexist in, and be produced by, a Spirit; since this is no more than I\ndaily experience in myself, inasmuch as I perceive numberless Ideas;\nand by an Act of my Will can form a great Variety of them, and raise\nthem up in my Imagination: Tho' it must be confessed, these Creatures\nof the Fancy are not altogether so distinct, so strong, vivid, and\npermanent, as those perceived by my Senses, which latter are called\n_Real Things_. From all which I conclude, _there is a Mind which\naffects me every Moment with all the sensible Impressions I perceive_.\nAnd from the Variety, Order, and Manner of these, I conclude the Author\nof them to be _wise, powerful, and good, beyond comprehension_. Mark it\nwell, I do not say, I see Things by perceiving that which represents\nthem in the intelligible Substance of God. This I do not understand;\nbut I say, The Things by me perceived are known by the Understanding,\nand produced by the Will, of an infinite Spirit. And is not all this\nmost plain and evident? Is there any more in it, than what a little\nObservation of our own Minds, and that which passes in them not only\nenables us to conceive, but also obliges us to acknowledge?\"\n\nNumberless charming quotations might be added from the \"Principles\" as\nwell as the Dialogues, but those already given may suffice, and they\nhave been chosen now because not very commonly quoted.\n\n[131] Hegel Encyklop\u00e4die T. i. S. 95. (Werke VI. 189.) The quotation\nabove is from Mr. Wallace's translation p. 153. Compare his Index.\n\n[132] In the just published Edition of Hume's Treatise on Human Nature,\nI. p. 140. We must all regret the loss of Dean Mansel's ultimate\nthoughts on \"The real error of Berkeley's Idealism.\" Letters &c. p.\n391. But more than a dozen years earlier, he wrote, (_Prolegomena\nLogica_, Chap. V.) \"The fault of Berkeley did not consist in doubting\nthe existence of matter, but in asserting its non-existence.\" How far\nMansel himself went in the direction of this same doubt may be judged\nfrom the following passage, which occurs in the Prolegomena one page\nbefore. \"Beyond the range of conscious beings, we can have only a\nnegative idea of substance. The name is applied in relation to certain\ncollections of sensible phenomena, natural or artificial, connected\nwith each other in various ways; by locomotion, by vegetation, by\ncontributing to a common end, by certain positions in space. But here\nwe have no positive notion of substance distinct from phenomena. I do\nnot attribute to the billiard ball a consciousness of its own figure,\ncolour, and motion; but, in denying consciousness, I deny the only\nform in which unity and substance have been presented to me. I have\ntherefore no data for thinking one way or the other on the question.\nSome kind of unity between the several phenomena may exist, or it may\nnot; but if it does exist, it exists in a manner of which I can form no\nconception; and if it does not exist, my faculties do not enable me to\ndetect its absence.\" In other words (as Mr. O'Hanlon might have phrased\nit) \"My friend Smith is I know a person,--therefore a substance. But\nSmith's hat and coat, being unconscious, lack the only forms in which\nunity and substance have been presented to me. Smith's coat is blue,\nits fabric woollen; his hat black, and of silken texture;--there\nmay or may not be unities in which these phenomena of colour and\nstructural appearance cohere; my faculties do not, however, enable me\nto decide whether hat and coat are or are not _positively_ substantial\nunifications.\n\nIt would appear from all this, that hats and coats and other familiar\nso-called substances, are as little _essentially_ known to us as\nthat vast territory of supernatural Being which has been named the\n\"Unknowable.\"\n\n[133] From Mr. Wallace's translation of Hegel's Logik, pp. 65, 8, and\n9. As the translator preserves the numbering of the Sections, reference\nis easy to the original German. Hegel adds a remark well worthy of\nattention:--\"The scepticism of Hume, by whom this observation was\nchiefly made, should be clearly marked off from Greek scepticism. Hume\nfounds his remarks on the truth of the empirical element, on feeling\nand sensation, and proceeds to attack universal truths and laws,\nbecause they do not derive their authority from sense-perception. So\nfar was ancient scepticism from making feeling and sensation a canon\nof truth, that it turned against the deliverances of sense first of\nall.\"--Ibid. p. 69.\n\n[134] Pp. 234-341. The preface to this volume is dated February 1874.\n\n[135] Martineau's conception discussed by Spencer is hampered by a\ntheory of Matter difficult _per se_.\n\n[136] See back pp. 76-8 and 107 (end of note) and connect with these\npassages the oft-repeated Wordsworthian maxim:--\n\n \"We murder to dissect.\"\n\n\n[137] See our Chapter VI. _On Causation_.\n\n[138] The paragraph cited in the text of Chapter III. concludes with\nthese words:--\"I will call no being good, who is not what I mean when\nI apply that epithet to my fellow-creatures; and if such a being can\nsentence me to hell for not so calling him, to hell I will go.\"\n\nNow, no man can sit down and _calculate_ himself into Mr. Mill's\nconviction thus enounced; neither could any cool process of argument\nhave ever kindled such a flame. A sternness of purpose like his must be\neither the skeleton-armour covering the thoughtless boy in Tennyson's\nGareth and Lynette, or it is the reflection of a light intuitively\nflashed through the soul--the echo of a chord struck upon the writer's\nvery heart-strings. Such and so deep, beyond doubt, was the ingenuous\nfeeling of Mr. Mill.\n\n[139] La Science au point de Vue Philosophique, pp. 539-542.\n\n[140] Psychological Inquiries, second part, pp. 195-197.\n\n[141] Address (Presidential) to British Association at Liverpool, 1870,\np. 15.\n\n[142] Loc. cit. pp. 199-200.\n\n[143] Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, January, 1873, p. 74.\n\n[144] Loc. cit. p. 64.\n\n[145] Loc. cit. pp. 69-70.\n\n[146] Loc. cit. pp. 16-17.\n\n[147] This quotation is from his _Matter and Force_, Chapter XIX.\nB\u00fcchner is never tired of emphasizing the Materialism of thought. In an\naddress prefixed to his tenth Edition, speaking of the hypothesis of\nMind acting on Brain he calls it \"the tragi-comic pianoforte theory,\"\nand regrets that there should be so many \"human pianofortes out of tune\nin the world.\" B\u00fcchner's own Materialism is outspoken, as may be judged\nfrom the following propositions:--\n\n1. Spirit without Body is unimaginable.\n\n2. The Soul brings with it \"no innate intuitions\"; and\n\n3. It is not an _ens per se_, but a product of external influences.\n\n4. There is no individual immortality nor personal continuance after\ndeath.\n\n5. The Soul's knowledge relates only to earthly things.\n\n6. It becomes a _person_ by being opposed to earthly individualities.\n\n7. (Adopted from C. Vogt) \"The soul ... is a product of the development\nof the brain; just as muscular activity is a product of muscular\ndevelopment, and secretion a product of glandular development. So soon\nas the substances composing the brain are aggregated in a similar form,\nwill they exhibit the same functions.... Mental activity changes with\nthe periods of life, and ceases altogether at death.\"\n\nB\u00fcchner's writings are sufficiently known in this country. In America\nthey are food for the million.\n\nProposition No. 6 is particularly noticeable because it re-echoes the\nfallacy of Locke (see page 182-3 _ante_) on personal identity. By\nopposition to earthly individualities we do not \"_become_\" persons, but\nthe sense of antagonism between ourselves and other externalities (both\nmen and things), sharpens every day our belief in our own personality,\nand furnishes its daily verification.\n\nThe grossness of this writer's Materialism does not hinder him from\nusing the word \"soul\" on almost every page; and in one of his more\nrecent publications he is candid enough to acknowledge that this\nold-fashioned entity is not yet quite improved off the face of the\nEarth. He says:--\"Just the properties of the human mind and the\nimpossibility of explaining them, were from the most ancient times one\nof the main supports of spiritualism and theological systems. True,\ntheir explanation is still wanting.\" B\u00fcchner, of course, looks for\nthe speedy elimination of \"Soul\" proper, on exactly the same grounds\nwhich underlie his own whole system. Mental activity and Brain go\ntogether (he argues), as Force and Matter go together. It may be\nanswered, that every practical reasoner knows the danger of arguing\nfrom _concomitancies_, however well-established, to _Causality_; and\nthe risk is evidently much increased when a like argument is used to\n_Identity_. Besides, if Mental activity is resolvable into Brain, why\nshould not Matter be likewise resolved into Force? Thus the whole\nUniverse, inanimate and animated, material and psychical, becomes\nForce. The chain would run in this manner: Mind = Brain = Matter =\nForce. But how are we to know that Force must be all of one kind and\ndescription? Or, again, why may not the concomitancies be rather\nresolved some other way;--_e.g._, Matter (including Brain) = Force =\nMind? Thus Materialism might slide into Idealism, Pantheism, or even\nTheism; since in some shape or other Mind would form and sustain the\nUniverse. Our last citation of B\u00fcchner is taken from a New York Edition\nof his _Materialism_, p. 19.\n\n[148] In other words, that kind of law which pervades the lowest sphere\nof Nature is conceived as dominant over the highest also. The whole\nUniverse is submitted to its iron rule. There is of Man's Mind as well\nas of the flagstone with which he paves his streets, one account, one\nlaw, one science, one philosophy; nay, strangely enough, as we shall\nsee further on, one religion! The law of stocks and stones is supreme,\nit rules alike Man's present and his future, and ought to be the sole\nobject of his veneration.\n\nPositivism, as is well known, makes many sciences and classifies them\nby an ascending scale of Laws. \"La Philosophie Positive,\" writes Littr\u00e9\n(_Paroles_, p. 10) ... \"apercevant que, suivant la vraie conception,\no\u00f9 la mati\u00e8re n'est pas s\u00e9parable de ses propri\u00e9t\u00e9s, le mot de\nmat\u00e9rialisme n'avait plus d'emploi philosophique qu'en histoire, elle\nl'a renouvel\u00e9, et s'en est servie pour caract\u00e9riser l'intrusion de la\nm\u00e9thode de toute science inf\u00e9rieure dans la science sup\u00e9rieure.\"\n\nIf Littr\u00e9 had said, \"the intrusion of the _lowest_ into the highest,\"\nhe would have rightly characterized the systems we are describing.\n\nVon Feuchtersleben puts the practical state of the question thus:--\"All\nwe can say is, that an intellectual world reveals itself to us, by the\nlaw of the true, the good, and the beautiful, and that a physical world\nmanifests itself by those laws which act in space and time. What lies\nbeyond these laws, as it were the substance of both worlds, we know\nnot; we only call that of the physical world, matter or body in the\nabstract, that of the super-physical, we call spirit (Geist), and must\nnever forget that hereby we have only pronounced an abstraction.\n\n\"But now we ask further, wherein does this higher law manifest itself\nto us, as the physical law does in the material world? Nowhere but\nin man, and in him only through the medium of his cultivated and\nrefined reason. What we feel, what we remember, nay, the very inmost\nsensations of our individual existence, may be referred to the world\nwhich surrounds us. Thought alone, exalted to the highest degree shows\nus another world. We are ourselves therefore not spirit, but we watch,\nas it were, what we call by that name, and which manifests itself\nto us only by its laws. (Est Deus in nobis.) Man, therefore, should\nbe the link which connects the two worlds; and this is the problem,\nthis is the enigma, which can never be solved.\" He adds in a note:\n\"Materialism, that is, the view which will not allow the separation\nof the intellectual principle from the corporeal, but looks upon the\nformer as a higher power of the latter, not only explains nothing,\nbut makes the enigma still more obscure. _Medical Psychology_, Ed.\nSydenham, pp. 15-16.\n\n[149] Compare footnote (_c_) pp. 56-7 _ante_. This whole theory\nis dreamlike,--a sort of romance or revel of a half-metaphysical,\nhalf-materializing imagination. The following rather long extract from\nHaeckel's book will shew the hypothesis on its most poetical side.\nBut alas for its prose, and its plain practical application! \"It is\nindeed,\" he writes, \"not difficult to arrive through an unprejudiced\nconsideration of facts, at a clear conviction that Theism, which\nhas its origin in Mythology, and which, under the name of \"Pure\nMonotheism,\" rules the civilized peoples of modern day, and plays\neven now so conspicuous a part in organic Morphology as the Myth of\nCreation, is in fact not Monotheism but AMPHITHEISM. This\npredominant religion was MONOTHEISM only so long as all\nNatural Phenomena were, without any exception, taken to be the direct\nresult of the personal divine government of the world,--only so long\nas all inorganic or organic Phenomena--from the blowing of the wind\nand the rolling of the thunder, to the light of the sun and the course\nof the stars; from the flowery fragrance of plants and the wing of\nthe bird, to the Mind-formation of Man and the development-history\nof peoples;--were direct actions of a monarchical, personal Creator.\nBut when modern Natural Science demonstrated that the whole realm of\ninorganic Nature was governed by fixed, unvarying laws of Nature;\nwhen Physics and Chemistry reduced Abiology to mathematical formul\u00e6,\nthen the half of his realm was wrested from the personal Creator, and\nthere remained to him organic Nature alone, and even the half of this\nwas next set free by recent Physiology, so that organic Morphology\nalone remained subject to the personal, arbitrary government of the\nmediatised ruler of the world. Thus, out of the earlier Monotheism\ngrew up that full-blown Amphitheism which at present rules the modern\nCosmology of civilized peoples; and which appears in Science as the\nthoroughly perverted Dualism against which we have contended most\ndeterminedly in our General Morphology. For, what else is this Dualism\nbut the battle between two Gods of fundamentally distinct natures? On\nthe one hand, we see in the realm of Abiology, dominated by Mechanism,\nthe exclusive sovereignty of unvarying and necessary Nature-laws, of\nthe [Greek: anank\u00ea], which at all times and in all places constantly\nremains one and the same.\n\n\"On the other hand, in the realm of Biology (which is still governed\nby Teleology), and especially in the realm of organic Morphology, we\nsee the ridiculous arbitrary government of a personal and thoroughly\nhumanlike Creator, who vainly wearies himself with endeavouring to\ncreate a 'perfect' Organism, and constantly rejects the earlier\ncreations of a 'former age,' in that he is continually setting up\nnew and improved editions in their places. We have already shewn, in\nour sixth chapter, why we must entirely reject this pitiful idea of\na personal Creator (Vol. I. p. 173). It is in fact a degradation of\nthe pure God-Idea. Most men picture to themselves this 'beloved God'\nas being thoroughly humanlike: he is in their eyes an architect, who\nis engaged in carrying on the construction of the world according\nto some previously rejected plan; but who never gets done with it,\nbecause during the process of completion, he is always hitting on new\nand better ideas; he is a Stage-manager, who directs the earth like a\ngreat puppet-play, and generally knows how to handle with tolerable\nskill the numerous threads by which he manages the hearts of men:\nhe is a half-deprived king who only rules over the inorganic realm\nconditionally, and according to firmly fixed laws; rules on the other\nhand over the organic realm absolutely as patriarchal land-father, who\nin this domain allows himself to be led into a daily alteration of his\nworld-plan by the wishes and prayers of his own children, among whom\nthe most perfect Vertebrates are those principally favoured.\n\n\"Let us turn away from this unworthy Anthropomorphism of modern\nDogmatics, which degrade God himself into an aerial Vertebrate, and\nlet us look on the contrary at the infinitely higher God-Idea to\nwhich Monism conducts us; in that it demonstrates the UNITY OF GOD in\nthe whole of Nature, and abolishes the antithesis of an organic and\ninorganic God which sows the germ of a death-agony in the heart of\nthat predominating Amphitheism. Our Cosmology knows only ONE SOLE GOD,\nand this ALMIGHTY GOD rules the whole of Nature without exception. We\ncontemplate his operation in all phenomena of every description. To it\nthe whole inorganic material world is subject, and so too the whole\nworld of organization. If each body _in vacuo_ falls fifteen feet in\nthe first second; if three atoms of Oxygen to one of Sulphur always\nproduce Sulphuric Acid; if the angle which one columnar surface of\nrock crystal makes with the neighbouring one is always 120\u00b0; then,\nthese phenomena are the immediate operations of God, equally with the\nblossoms of plants, the movements of animals, the thoughts of Mankind.\nWe all exist by 'God's grace'; the stone as well as the water, the\nRadiolarian as well as the pine tree, the gorilla as much as the\nEmperor of China.\n\n\"This Cosmology which contemplates GOD'S SPIRIT AND POWER IN\nALL NATURAL PHENOMENA is alone worthy of His all-comprehensive\ngreatness; only when we refer all forces and all phenomena of movement,\nall forms and properties of matter, to God, as the Author of all\nthings, do we attain to that human intuition of God, and veneration\nof God, which really befits his immeasurable greatness. For 'in Him\nwe live and move and have our being.' Thus the philosophy of Nature\nbecomes in fact Theology. The worship of Nature becomes that true\nworship of God of which G\u00f6ethe says:--'CERTAINLY THERE IS NO MORE\nBEAUTIFUL VENERATION OF GOD, THAN THAT WHICH ARISES FROM COMMUNION WITH\nNATURE IN OUR OWN BREASTS.'\n\n\"GOD IS ALMIGHTY; he is the sole Author, the prime Cause of\nall things; that is, in other words, GOD IS THE UNIVERSAL CAUSAL\nLAW. God is absolutely perfect; he can never act otherwise than\nperfectly rightly, therefore he can never act arbitrarily or freely;\nthat is to say, GOD IS NECESSITY. God is the sum of all\nforces; so also, therefore, of all Matter. Every conception of God,\nwhich separates him from Matter, opposes to him a sum of forces which\nare not of divine Nature; every such conception leads to Amphitheism,\nconsequently to Polytheism.\n\n\"Since MONISM demonstrates the UNITY OF THE WHOLE OF\nNATURE, it proves, likewise, that only ONE GOD exists,\nand that this God manifests himself in the collective phenomena of\nNature. Since Monism grounds the collective phenomena of organic and\ninorganic Nature on the UNIVERSAL CAUSAL LAW, and displays\nthem as the effects of 'active causes,' it shews at the same time,\nthat GOD IS THE NECESSARY CAUSE OF ALL THINGS AND IS THE LAW\nITSELF. Since Monism acknowledges no other beside the divine\nForces in Nature, since it recognizes all laws of Nature as divine, it\nraises itself to the greatest and most elevated conception of which\nman, as the most perfect of all animals, is capable, to the conception\nof the UNITY OF GOD AND NATURE.\n\n    'Was w\u00e4r' ein Gott, der nur von aussen stiesse,\n    Im Kreis das All am Finger laufen liesse!\n    Ihm ziemt's, die Welt im Innern zu bewegen,\n    Natur in Sich, Sich in Natur zu hegen,\n    So dass, was in Ihm lebt und webt und ist,\n    Nie Seine Kraft, nie Seinen Geist vermisst.'\"\n\nHaeckel's _Generelle Morphologie der Organismen_. Vol. II. Book viii.\nChap. 30.\n\nNo one who reads the latter part of this quotation will doubt that\nHaeckel is a refined, or, in other words, a metaphysical Materialist.\nThat he has produced an effect in materializing circles is evident;\nwitness the following passages from B\u00fcchner \"the crass.\" \"To any one\nwho does not stubbornly and obstinately cling to old prejudices, this\nnew Cosmology which has superseded the dualism of former systems\nof philosophy and thought, must appear as clear, simple, free of\ndualism, easily intelligible and perfectly satisfactory. On account\nof this very antagonism to the dualistic character of the speculative\nphilosophy of the past, I should like best to designate the philosophy\nof Materialism as _monistic philosophy_, or _philosophy of unity_;\nand the cosmology founded upon it as _monism_, in accordance with the\nsuggestion of Professor Haeckel.... Since the indestructibility of\nmatter, as previously described, has found its necessary complement\nin the indestructibility of force; and since the separation of force\nand matter has been recognized as a mere abstraction and existing\nonly in our thoughts: it is really impossible to speak any longer of\nMaterialism as a system which derives everything from matter only.\nOtherwise we might just as well speak of _Dynamism_, that is of a\nsystem that derives everything from force (dynamis). But in reality\nboth are identical and inseparable; and therefore a philosophy built\nupon those ideas cannot be better designated than as _monistic_, or\na _philosophy of unity_.\" (_Materialism, ut supra_ p. 24.) This last\nphrase is more metaphysical than B\u00fcchner's wont; but S. T. Coleridge,\nif alive, would tell him that what the world really wants, is a\n\"Philosophy of Multeity in Unity.\" To annihilate the Manifold is to\ndestroy our sole knowledge of the One.\n\n[150] It was previously intimated that the idealizing philosopher often\nescapes ethical censure more easily than he deserves. Idealism may,\nor may not, be a bar to irreligious materialism. For example:--\"The\nmaterialism of Strauss was not inconsistent with an idealism of the\nHegelian type; for, as he showed in his last work, the question\nbetween logically consistent idealists and materialists who carry out\ntheir principles is, at its roots, one of names and terms rather than\nof antagonistic principles.\" _Pall Mall Gazette_ for Feb. 11, 1874.\nThe Idealism referred to, is that which identifies pure Being with\nImpersonal Thought. Now Berkeley's idealism culminated with the Divine\nPersonality, through whose omnipresence and spiritual subsistence\nthose properties or modes of existence, called material, are realized\nto us, who, together with all the world, exist in and by Him. Yet, as\nfar as Berkeley's argument rests upon the common ground of idealistic\nreasoning, it is approachable by the Atheist or the Sceptic. Of Hobbes\na reviewer has lately remarked: \"He clearly demonstrated that the\nsecondary qualities of body are purely subjective, and his language\nis almost strong enough to lead us to believe that he would have gone\na long way with Berkeley. For he claims to have proved that 'as in\nvision, so also in _conceptions_ that arise from the other senses,\nthe subject of their inherence is not the object but the sentient.'\"\n_Westminster Review_, April, 1874, p. 387.\n\nThe truth from which so many theories, physical and metaphysical,\nbranch out, is thus clearly stated by Professor Huxley. \"All the\nphenomena of nature are, in their ultimate analysis, known to us only\nas facts of consciousness.\" \"On Descartes,\" _Lay Sermons_, p. 374.\nThis statement is an incontrovertible proposition; and may help in\npersuading us to believe our own souls. At all events, we plainly see\nthat the sum total of our human knowledge is potentially contained in\ntheir evidence.\n\n[151] A mongrel Word-book would be a valuable addition to popular\nscience. How many metaphysicians proper, or how many skilled students\nof Natural Science, can explain that novel compound \"Psychoplasm\"? The\n_Westminster Review_ is _not_ lost in admiration for either this new\ncoinage, or another specimen from the same mint,--\"Metempirics.\" (See\nNo. for July, 1874.) The _Fortnightly_ is more congratulatory.\n\n[152] Ravaisson, the great philosophical critic of France, considers\nBiology among the sciences directly antagonistic to Materialism.\nHe classifies the tendencies of scientific studies thus. There\nare, he says, \"Deux directions oppos\u00e9es auxquelles nous inclinent\nles deux ordres differents de connaissances:--la direction qui\naboutit au Materialisme, et c'est celle dans laquelle nous engagent\nles math\u00e9matiques et la physique, et la direction qui m\u00e8ne au\nspiritualisme, et c'est celle o\u00f9 acheminent la biologie et surtout les\nsciences morales et esth\u00e9tiques.\" (_La Philosophie en France_, p. 98.)\nHis description of a certain degree of progress in the mind of Comte\nillustrates this same idea:--\"Il comprit, en pr\u00e9sence de la vie, que\nce n'\u00e9tait pas assez, comme il avait pu le croire dans la sph\u00e8re des\nchoses m\u00e9caniques et physiques, de consid\u00e9rer des ph\u00e9nom\u00e8nes \u00e0 la suite\nou \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 les uns des autres, mais que, de plus, que surtout il fallait\nprendre en consid\u00e9ration l'ordre et l'ensemble.\n\n\"En pr\u00e9sence des \u00eatres organis\u00e9s, on s'aper\u00e7oit, disait-il, que le\nd\u00e9tail des ph\u00e9nom\u00e8nes, quelque explication plus ou moins suffisante\nqu'on en donne, n'est ni le tout ni m\u00eame le principal; que le\nprincipal, et l'on pourrait presque dire le tout, c'est l'ensemble dans\nl'espace, le progr\u00e8s dans le temps, et qu'expliquer un \u00eatre vivant, ce\nserait montrer la raison de cet ensemble et de ce progr\u00e8s, qui est la\nvie m\u00eame....\n\n\"Dans les sciences des choses inorganiques, disait-il encore, on\nproc\u00e8de par d\u00e9duction des d\u00e9tails au tout; dans les sciences des \u00eatres\norganis\u00e9s, c'est de l'ensemble que se tire par d\u00e9duction, la vraie\nconnaissance des parties.\n\n\"De plus, d'accord maintenant avec Platon, Aristote, Leibniz, il\nd\u00e9clarait que l'ensemble \u00e9tant le r\u00e9sultat et l'expression d'une\ncertaine unit\u00e9, \u00e0 laquelle tout concourt et se co-ordonne et qui est le\nbut o\u00f9 tout marche, c'est dans cette unit\u00e9, c'est dans le but, c'est\ndans la fin ou cause finale qu'est le secret de l'organisme.\n\n\"Le 16 Juillet 1843, \u00e9crivant \u00e0 M. Stuart Mill, il exprimait l'opinion\nque, si ce savant ne le suivait pas dans les voies plus larges o\u00f9\ndor\u00e9navant il allait marchait, c'est que, tr\u00e8s-vers\u00e9 dans les \u00e9tudes\nmath\u00e9matiques et physiques, il n'\u00e9tait pas assez familier avec les\nph\u00e9nom\u00e8nes de la vie. Plus avanc\u00e9 dans la science biologique, M. Mill\naurait mieux compris comment il faut, outre le d\u00e9tail des faits,\nquelque chose qui les domine, qui les combine et les co-ordonne.\"\n(_Ibid._ p. 75, _seq._)\n\n[153] These pages are inappropriate to that wide and momentous\ncontroversy:--Has each Science a Method of its own?--and by consequence\nits own terminology? That such a question remains to be debated, is a\nclear proof that most of our philosophizing is yet tentative; and has\nnot passed over the critical \"first stage.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nBELIEFS OF REASON.\n\n\n\"While we indulge to the _Sensitive_ or _Plantal_ Life, our delights\nare common to us with the creatures _below_ us: and 'tis likely, they\nexceed us as much in them, as in the senses their subjects; and that's\na poor happiness for Man to aim at, in which Beasts are his Superiours.\nBut those Mercurial spirits which were only lent the Earth to shew\nMen their folly in admiring it; possess delights of a nobler make and\nnature, which as it were antedate _Immortality_; and, at an humble\ndistance, resemble the joyes of the world of _Light_ and _Glory_.\nThe _Sun_ and _Stars_, are not the world's _Eyes_, but _These_: the\n_Celestial Argus_ cannot glory in such an universal view. These\nout-travel theirs, and their _Monarch's_ beams: passing into _Vortexes_\nbeyond their Light and Influence; and with an easie twinkle of an\nIntellectual Eye look into the _Centre_, which is obscur'd from the\nupper Luminaries. This is somewhat like the Image of _Omnipresence_.\nAnd what the _Hermetical Philosophy_ saith of _God_, is in a sense\nverifiable of the thus _ennobled soul_, That _its Centre is every\nwhere, but its circumference no where_....\n\n\".... And yet there's an higher degree, to which _Philosophy_ sublimes\nus. For, as it teacheth a generous contempt of what the grovelling\ndesires of _creeping_ Mortals Idolize and dote on: so it raiseth us\nto love and admire an Object, that is as much above terrestrial, as\n_Infinite_ can make it. If _Plutarch_ may have credit, the observation\nof Nature's Harmony in the _Celestial Motions_ was one of the first\ninducements to the belief of _a God_. And a greater then he affirms,\nthat the visible things of the Creation declare him, that made them.\nWhat knowledge we have of them, we have in a sense of their Authour.\nHis face cannot be beheld by Creature-Opticks, without the allay of a\nreflexion; and Nature is one of those mirrors, that represents him to\nus. And now, the more we know of him the more we love him, the more\nwe are like him, the more we admire him. 'Tis here that _knowledge\nwonders_; and there's an _Admiration_, that's not the _Daughter_ of\n_Ignorance_. This indeed stupidly gazeth at the unwonted _effect_.\nBut the Philosophical passion truly admires and adores the supreme\n_Efficient_ ....\n\n\".... And from this last article, I think I may conclude the charge,\nwhich hot-brained folly layes in against _Philosophy_; that it leads\nto _Irreligion_, frivolous and vain. I dare say, next after the\ndivine _Word_, it's one of the best friends to _Piety_. Neither is it\nany more justly accountable for the impious irregularities of some,\nthat have paid an homage to its shrine; than Religion itself for the\nextravagancies both _opinionative_ and _practick_ of high pretenders\nto it. It is a vulgar conceit, that _Philosophy_ holds a confederacy\nwith _Atheism_ itself, but most _injurious_: for nothing can better\nantidote us against it: and they may as well say, that _Physitians_ are\nthe only _murtherers_. A _Philosophick Atheist_, is as good sense as a\nDivine one.\"--_Glanvill's Apology for Philosophy_, at end of _Scepsis\nScientifica_, Ed. I. p. 177, seq.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Greek: Esti gar apaideusia to m\u00ea gign\u00f4skein tin\u00f4n dei z\u00eatein apodeixin\nkai tin\u00f4n ou dei Hol\u00f4s men gar hapant\u00f4n adynaton apodeixin einai; eis\napeiron gar an badizoi, h\u00f4ste m\u00ead' hout\u00f4s einai apodeixin.] Arist.\n_Metaph._ IV. ([Greek: G]) cap. 4.\n\nThe following is the translation of MM. Pierron et Z\u00e9vort: \"C'est\nde l'ignorance de ne pas savoir distinguer ce qui a besoin de\nd\u00e9monstration de ce qui n'en a pas besoin. Il est absolument impossible\nde tout d\u00e9montrer: il faudrait pour cela aller \u00e0 l'infini; de sorte\nqu'il n'y aurait m\u00eame pas de d\u00e9monstration.\" M\u00e9taphysique d'Aristote,\nTome I. p. 116.\n\n    \"Man's higher Instinct leads to lofty aspiration,\n    To generous sentiment, and boundless desire,\n    Till he seeks and finds the Author of his Soul.\n    In seeking for him he perfects his virtue,\n    By finding him he is made strong within,\n    And being strong he strengthens his brethren.\"\n\n    \"Light is natural to the Eye, and the Eye improves under Light,\n    So Truth is natural to the Mind, and the Mind improves under Truth.\n    But the student of Goodness must himself become good,\n    So far at least as to choose Goodness for his best portion.\n    If base passion or worldliness is allowed to domineer,\n    No man can gaze steadily at Purity and at God.\n    And then perhaps he despairs of religious truth,\n    And moralizes on Man's feebleness and limited faculties,\n    So unfitted to fathom the Divine and to know the Eternal!\"\n\n    F. NEWMAN. _Theism_, pp. 2 and 12.\n\n\"The world offers just now the spectacle, humiliating to us in many\nways, of millions of people clinging to their old idolatrous religions,\nand refusing to change them even for a higher form; whilst in Christian\nEurope thousands of the most cultivated class are beginning to consider\natheism a permissible, or even a desirable thing. The very instincts\nof the savage rebuke us. But just when we seem in danger of losing\nall, may come the moment of awakening to the dangers of our loss. A\nworld where thought is a secretion of the brain-gland, where free-will\nis the dream of a madman that thinks he is an emperor though naked\nand in chains, where God is not, or at least not knowable, such is\nnot the world as we learnt it, on which great lives have been lived\nout, great self-sacrifices dared, great piety and devotion have been\nbent to soften the sin, the ignorance, and the misery. It is a world\nfrom which the sun is withdrawn, and with it all light and life. But\nthis is not our world as it was, not the world of our fathers. To\nlive is to think and to will. To think is to see the chain of facts\nin creation, and passing along its golden links, to find the hand of\nGod at its beginning, as we saw His handiwork in its course. And to\nwill is to be able to know good and evil; and to will aright is to\nsubmit the will entirely to a will higher than ours. So that with God\nalone can we find true knowledge and true rest, the vaunted fruits of\nphilosophy.\"--_Limits of Philosophical Inquiry_. By the Archbishop of\nYork, p. 24.\n\n                  \"The mind of man becomes\n    A thousand times more beautiful than the earth\n    On which he dwells, above this frame of things\n\n           *       *       *       *       *\n\n    In beauty exalted, as it is itself\n    Of quality and fabric more divine.\"\n\n    WORDSWORTH. _The Prelude_, sub. fin.\n\n\n\"Religion, Poetry is not dead; it will never die. Its dwelling and\nbirth place is in the soul of man, and it is eternal as the being\nof man. In any point of space, in any section of Time, let there be\na living Man; and there is an Infinitude above him and beneath him,\nand an Eternity encompasses him on this hand and on that; and tones\nof Sphere-music, and tidings from loftier worlds, will flit round\nhim, if he can but listen, and visit him with holy influences, even\nin the thickest press of trivialities, or the din of busiest life.\nHappy the man, happy the nation, that can hear these tidings; that has\nthem written in fit characters, legible to every eye, and the solemn\nimport of them present at all moments to every heart! That there is,\nin these days, no nation so happy, is too clear; but that all nations,\nand ourselves in the van, are, with more or less discernment of its\nnature, struggling towards this happiness, is the hope and the glory\nof our time. To us, as to others, success, at a distant or a nearer\nday, cannot be uncertain. Meanwhile, the first condition of success\nis, that, in striving honestly ourselves, we honestly acknowledge\nthe striving of our neighbour; that with a will unwearied in seeking\nTruth, we have a sense open for it wheresoever and howsoever it may\narise.\"--CARLYLE. _Miscellanies_, p. 99, Last Edition.\n\n\nSYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER IV.\n\n With the last Chapter closes what may be termed the more critical part\n of this Essay. The remainder is occupied with a series of affirmative\n arguments.\n\n The preparation for these arguments having been minutely made,\n explanatory additions become less necessary.\n\n The main object of the present chapter is to establish a tenable\n Theory respecting those Human Beliefs among which is included our\n primary Belief in Theism. Their nature and validity not having as yet\n been sufficiently investigated (see footnote (_b_) p. 256 _post_),\n some extent of discussion attends the inquiry. To many readers the\n territory opened out will appear new. It ought however to be traversed\n by all careful students of Psychology.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n _Analysis_:--Tendencies of the Human Mind resulting in certain\n concrete Beliefs. The Inductive Principle, or Law of Uniformity,\n investigated. Various explanations of its origin examined and\n rejected; particularly the hypothesis which resolves it into Laws of\n Association. Shewn to be a primary Belief; at first pre-rational,\n afterwards limited and established by Reason. The latter process\n separates by a strong line of demarcation the realm of Humanity from\n that of the lower creation.\n\n Animal instincts, some improvable, some \"survivals.\" Human instincts\n transformed by Reason. Certain primary Beliefs peculiar to Man. Hence\n his special culture.\n\n Theism. Fallacies from confusion between Tests of Speculative and of\n Practical Truth. Lesson of Mathematics. Speculative truths tested by\n analytic process; Practical by synthetic; their work becomes their\n ever-growing verification. Application of this test to two practical\n beliefs; our natural belief in externalities, and our belief in the\n Supernatural. Speculative difficulties intruded into the practical\n sphere become apparently insuperable. Both spheres essentially Human.\n Natural Realism compared with Realistic Theism.\n\n Formation and growth of Belief in the Supernatural as a Belief of\n Reason. Absurdities attaching to its rejection. Ennobling influences\n of its acceptance explained and exemplified. Ideal of Humanity,\n crowned by the Ideal of God, to Whom both the Natural and the Moral\n world bear witness.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nBELIEFS OF REASON.\n\n\nIn the last section, we have examined a number of intellectual\nperplexities, running closely parallel to certain _prim\u00e2-facie_\nobjections commonly alleged against Natural Theism. We have seen\nthat they are, in reality, difficulties arising from the impotence\nof the Human Mind, whenever it is directed to the contemplation of\nfirst or supreme, Principles. In all reason therefore, they cease to\nbe objections. We are, in fact, constantly finding ourselves obliged\nto accept as an undeniable truth, or a real existence, what when\nplaced objectively before our mental vision, appears inexplicable,\nself-contradictory, or absolutely unthinkable.\n\nThe power which compels us to many an admission of this kind is\nthe _mind itself_, asserting a strength of insight, in-born and\ninalienable, notwithstanding the symptoms of weakness, which\n(psychologically speaking) may have seemed threatening to overcloud and\ndisable it.[ac]\n\nHence, we are led to suspect that some at least of those symptomatic\nweaknesses, are mistakes in diagnosis. This suspicion will be shared by\nmost persons tolerably acquainted with the present state of psychology,\nand particularly with the manner in which foregone theories are\nsupported by over-refined analysis. At all events, the reactionary\nstrength of the mind is best shown in the concrete beliefs resulting\nfrom its own simplest activities.\n\nOur simplest mental activities are naturally our earliest. Amongst\nthem, none are more distinctly marked than our impulses to believe\nand act upon certain definite pre-suppositions. These differ from the\nvague and purposeless dreams of childhood, by gradually becoming clear,\npractical, and expansive. One of the most vigorous, permanent, and\nprevailing, amongst them all, is our human belief in the existence of\nsupernatural power. Upon another presupposition (not originally the\nclearest), seems to rest, in the first degree, that principle which\ngives validity to all the inductive sciences. We will carefully examine\nthis latter belief, with the object of drawing from the process certain\naids for an examination of the former.[ad]\n\nInduction is defined as the legitimate inference of the more general,\nfrom the less general;--the general from the particular;--and (with\nmore startling distinctness) of the Unknown from the Known. It is at\nonce evident that, whatever may be the logical form into which this\nmode of inferring is thrown, there must in the nature of things be\nsome ulterior principle to give it legitimacy. This principle, when\nraised to the rank and dignity of a philosophic postulate, is commonly\nknown as the Law of Natural Uniformity. A law claiming such extensive\ndominion that one cannot help asking in what code, human or Divine, of\nreason or of experience, it was originally found written.\n\nLet us have recourse to the code of reason first. Euclid gives\nadmirable instances of things true by necessity of reason. The moment\nwe understand what right lines are, we see at once and for all time\nthat two straight lines, infinitely prolonged, can never inclose a\nspace. No one ever did see a mathematical line of any kind (\"length\nwithout thickness\"),--no one ever saw or conceived any real or ideal\nthing of infinite extent, neither can we think infinity at all. Yet\nthe terms of the geometrical proposition carry their own evidence. We\nmay sum the case, as Euler the mathematician put it. He finished a\ndemonstration upon _Arches_ by saying, \"All experience is contrary to\nthis, but that is no reason for doubting its truth.\"\n\nNow, there appears nothing in the least resembling this case, in the\nconception of Natural Uniformity. No thinker can predicate substantial\nimpossibility of the idea that Nature should ever be otherwise than\nUniform.\n\nSuppose, then, we consider the code of Experience. Where shall we find\nthe experience required? Ours is far short of universal, either in an\nabsolute or an approximate sense. We are the children of to-day--yet\nthe law wanted must be to all intents universal. It has been answered\nto this obvious requirement, that we enjoy the results of an experience\nconstant and uniform, \"coextensive not with the life of the single\nindividual who employs them, but with the entire history of the human\nrace.\"[154] But in what history is any such experience written?\nHistory in its _letter_, is full of events which contradict Nature's\nuniformity, of interruptions, marvels, miracles. For cattle to speak,\nis quite a common occurrence in Livy. An ordinary Roman would have been\nperplexed by the absence of signs and wonders; he would have felt it\nsomething to be accounted for. History tells us on every written page\nto believe in what seems impossible; and some writers on historical\nevidence, claim for it a greater amount of credibility whenever it\ntestifies to the greater number of improbable incidents. For, do not\nwriters of fiction deal in probabilities?[155]\n\nAnother method of giving force to the principle of natural Uniformity,\nis based on our alleged sense of personal subjection to the chain\nof events;--the outer world is said to penetrate the inner by an\nimpression of its unvarying sequence, its laws of unbroken continuity.\nBut does the lesson of life really go this way? Most men, when\nmeditating over their own lives, think rather of the causation they\nhave themselves exercised, or might have exercised, than of any iron\nlinks of causality in nature. So strongly do they feel their causal\npower, that, whereas one man boasts of being the architect of his own\nfortunes, another blames himself because he has been foolish enough\nto let things take their chance. What people chiefly realize and act\nupon, is the relation between Man and Nature--or, else between Man\nand Man;--relations prolific in consequences which we shall have to\nconsider by-and-bye.\n\nA more summary mode of explaining our human impression of natural\nUniformity, is by resolving it into certain laws of Association. We\nsee antecedent and consequent every day, and get to consider them as\nindissolubly associated. If we see a present antecedent, we expect a\ncoming consequent. The event and its futurity, are thus fused in a\ncommon solvent. Yet, one palpable objection lies against this theory,\nand it is fatal. Fatal against it, and against all theories which rest\nour belief upon experience, or upon any process of reasoning, inductive\nor demonstrated. The objection consists in the plain fact, that this\nbelief resembles animal instinct[156] in _one_ definite particular--it\nexists previously to all observation or exercise of intelligence on the\nsubject.\n\nWe see it in all young creatures. The instinct of children is to act\nupon a supposition that the thing they have enjoyed or suffered shall\nrecur regularly and without interruption. The darling brought down to\ndessert every day for a week, feels injured by a breach of the custom,\njust as the cat or dog fed from their masters' table expects the same\nhand to continue always kind. Child, kitten, and puppy, need no second\nscalding to look askance at the tea-kettle. Grown people's confidence\nin the stability of Empires often reposes on no much stronger\nfoundation. Most men rest satisfied with an indefinite and unreasoning\npresumption all their lives long. They desire no further explanation--a\nhappy circumstance, perhaps, considering the theories they might have\nto investigate.\n\nMr. James Mill in his \"Analysis of the Human Mind\" made great and\ncontinual use of the laws of Association. He applied them (amongst\nother ways) to our belief in the uniform futurities of Nature. \"There\ncan\" he writes \"be no idea of the Future; because strictly speaking\nthe Future is a non-entity--of nothing there can be no idea.... Our\nwhole lives are but a series of changes, that is, of antecedents and\nconsequents. The conjunction, therefore, is incessant; and, of course,\nthe union of the ideas perfectly inseparable.\" (Vol. I. pp. 362-3.)\nAnd again, (p. 367,) \"But I am told, that we have not only the idea\nof to-morrow, but the belief of to-morrow; and I am asked what that\nbelief is. I answer, that you have not only the idea of to-morrow, but\nhave it _inseparably_. It will also appear, that wherever the name\nbelief is applied, there is a case of the indissoluble association of\nideas. It will further appear, that, in instances without number, the\nname belief is applied to a mere case of indissoluble association; and\nno instance can be adduced in which anything besides an indissoluble\nassociation can be shewn in belief. It would seem to follow from this,\nwith abundant evidence, that the whole of my notion of to-morrow,\nbelief included, is nothing but a case of the inevitable sequence\nof ideas.\"--This theory Mr. Bain (no hostile critic) annotates as\nfollows. \"The case that is most thoroughly opposed to the theory of\nindissoluble association is our belief in the Uniformity of Nature. Our\noverweening tendency to anticipate the future from the past is shown\nprior to all association; the first effect of experience is to abridge\nand modify a strong primitive urgency. There is, no doubt, a certain\nstage when association co-operates to justify the believing state.\nAfter our headlong instinct has, by a series of reverses, been humbled\nand toned down, and after we have discovered that the Uniformity, at\nfirst imposed by the mind upon everything, applies to some things and\nnot to others, we are confirmed by our experience in the cases where\nthe uniformity prevails; and the intellectual growth of association\ncounts for a small part of the believing impetus. Still, the efficacy\nof experience is perhaps negative rather than positive; it saves, in\ncertain cases, the primitive force of anticipation from the attacks\nmade upon it in the other cases where it is contradicted by the facts.\nIt does not make belief, it conserves a pre-existing belief.\" In Mr.\nBain's comment it is worthy of particular remark that he considers\nexperience less as a foundation, than a _test_ always,--a _limit_\nsometimes,--of that law which gives life to all the experimental\nsciences. \"The uniformity imposed by the mind,\" he observes,\n\"applies to some things but not to others.\" His view, therefore,\nplaces the principle itself in the light of a generality given by\nthe mind and apprehended as a leading maxim. Its field is sometimes\nreasserted,--sometimes contracted,--by experience; but in both cases\nthe effect is a process of discrimination.\n\nIn support of this view, it may be fairly urged that a child calculates\non the uniformity of human character and conduct, to an extent not\njustified in after life. Any child correctly expects a stone to fall\nwhen thrown into the air, without the least idea of that special reason\nfor its fall, which can be mathematically extended to the stars. In\nlike manner, our very earliest belief in the reality of men and objects\noutside us, confuses persons and things as resisting antagonists which\nought to be punished and overcome. Experience, therefore, brings\ndiscrimination. Thus, too, the natural apprehension of a power above\nnature, occupies a more defined sphere in our own old age than the\nfirst radiant glimpses of our wondering upward-springing childhood. And\nthe same may be said of the world's several eras of religious thinking.\nYet, if some eminent writers are correct in contending that the belief\nin a Supreme \"_Heaven-Father_,\" (so strong in the Aryan[157] family,)\nwas of extreme antiquity, we must admit that our race's infancy\ncherished a more truly Theistic faith, than many intervening ages of\nmoral degeneracy retained.[158] But, side by side with this admission,\nwe ought to place _two_ notable facts,--_first_ that our sense of the\nsupernatural has really educated the great heart of Man; teaching him\nfrom the love of God to love his neighbour likewise.--_Next_,--that\nthe awful impression has, on the whole, grown with his growth, and\nstrengthened with his strength; acquiring fresh light and beauty with\nevery fresh access to his noblest illumination. Exactly in proportion,\nas man increasingly learns to love and live for his neighbour, he has\nalways increased the depth and earnestness with which he lives for and\nloves his God. In these two facts is bound up the secret of our Western\ncivilization.\n\nWe must return, however, for a few paragraphs to the general\nconsideration of what may be called our pre-rational beliefs.[ae] That\nthey are pre-rational (account for them as we will), is evident since\nfrom them spring our first tendencies to reason in special directions,\nand our first ability to receive and assimilate such mental food as\nmay be afforded us. \"The primary facts of intelligence,\"--says Sir\nW. Hamilton, \"the facts which precede, as they afford the conditions\nof, all knowledge,--would not be original were they revealed to us\nunder any other form than that of natural or necessary beliefs.\"[159]\nA central point this; and one most essential for the Psychologist!\nIndeed, every one who explains such beliefs into laws of association,\ncommits the oversight of refining away the chief fact involved in\nthose laws themselves. For, the very idea of association presupposes\na guiding impulse. How can we classify without a standard of\nclassification, arrange or connect without threads of connection or\narrangement? Laws of association must cluster round an associating\nprinciple, just as translucent halos encircle the Sun. Laws of\nassociation do not make principles; but an operative principle evokes\nassociations, and manifests itself in their law.\n\nOversights like this, and the one before noted by Mr. Bain, are\nexamples of the paralogism incident to all attempts at explaining the\ninexplicable. In his eagerness, the metaphysical refiner subtilizes\naway the truth under analysis. Even so, in days of old, Alchemists used\nto sublimate the gold intended for transmuting inferior metals, till it\nflew off in elastic vapour, and all that _had been_ precious, vanished\nfrom the eager speculative man. A frequent issue this, to searchers\nafter our true philosopher's stone.\n\nThe catalogue of pre-rational beliefs or impulses to believe, is\nconsiderable, and might easily be enlarged. But there is much to hinder\na full enumeration. In the first place, they emerge from a border-land\nbetween the brute and the man; and border territories are proverbially\nfertile in disputes. Next, they have to be sought out and examined\nin the birthplace of intelligence; and the beginnings of knowledge\nlike the beginnings of history are overshadowed by a twilight haze.\nThen, too, amongst the painters of human nature, (who after all are\nbut men,) there prevails a disinclination to confess how largely our\nhuman life is cradled under the rule of unreason and impulsiveness.\nMost of us hardly know why we act, yet, every one likes to believe\nhimself reasoning and reasonable. Finally, some religious minds\nshrink back from realizing the idea of an _instinctive_ belief in the\nmoral antithesis of Right and Wrong, or in a Supreme First Cause and\nJudge of all men. They feel as if to admit it were almost degrading\nto Faith,--forgetful that the philosophic Apostle took this view and\nexpressed it with the utmost boldness.[160] Forgetful, also, that from\nwhatever source Man's reason sprang, from the same welled forth every\nbright stream of practical activity,--impelling him to work in spheres\nas yet unconquered by the force of his own understanding.\n\nThe hindrances now described are, after all, grounded on an inadequate\nconception of the true distinction between the Animal and the Man.\nApart from the fact that ultimate objects of instinct differ as widely\nas the idea of a future life differs from the poorest enjoyments of\nthe brute world,--quite apart from all consideration of aims and\nends,--the impulses themselves are in their own activities very far\nindeed from occupying the same level. There are instincts of the\nutmost importance to all self support and self protection, and to\nthe sustenance and care of others, which appear in their own nature\nsimple and unalterable;--unerring within their direct line, but beyond\nit helpless and narrow in their field of operation. Other instincts\nagain,--such, for example, as impel animals to construction, and human\nbeings to art,--are evidently influenced and enlarged by intelligence.\nBeavers adapt their dams, birds their nests, and the bee her comb,\nto all kinds of circumstances, so far as they can command the means\nof adaptation. Their intelligence also delights itself in different\nkinds of adornment.[161] But the power of meeting exigencies, is\nmanifestly limited throughout the lower creation. The bee has, for\nages, worked upon marvellously accurate principles, unintelligible\nto mathematicians before the calculus was invented, and only fully\nexplained of late years. She always erects one effectual and skilful\nkind of barricade[162] against hostile swarms, as well as that\ndreaded assailant, the Death's head moth. Furthermore, she evinces\nreadiness in fitting all her material structures to place, occasion,\nand circumstance. Yet, observe the same bee exhausting herself by\nvain struggles against the sloping roof of a greenhouse, of which\nevery window is thrown wide open. She perseveres, hour after hour, in\nunavailing endeavours to escape by her one accustomed upward track\nof flight, unable to conceive the possibility of transparent but\nimpenetrable glass; and incapable of learning the fact by her repeated\ndisappointments. In this way, hundreds of bees, butterflies, and other\nwinged insects, perish miserably every summer. So, too, the highly\neducated and intelligent dog, will try to scratch holes in hard flag\nstones, and, after trials innumerable, still scratches on without\nseeming to discover that he never succeeds in making a single hole.\nThus, also, birds in captivity keep up the perpetual motion of their\nheads--(useful to the poor prisoner no longer!) and generations after\ngenerations of captives maintain the instinctive practice. Numberless\ninstances might easily be adduced to the same effect. But _no_ similar\nobservation holds good of man. The child soon discontinues its efforts\nto thrust an arm through a glass window; and every day learns some new\nlesson in the properties of material objects. The engineer builds dams\nas well as the beaver;--but, beside dams, what marvels innumerable\ndoes he achieve with his earthworks, his timbers, and his stones!\nSpeaking generally, we perceive that man has an instinctive tendency to\nlay hold of a practical fact, idea, and law of action, as a concrete\nwhole;[163]--seizing it, at first, as the animal does without being\nable to analyze, recompound, or extend it. But reason holds the candle\nto instinct.[af] The impulse deepens and widens,--becomes distinguished\nby boldness and comprehensive breadth;--and it is difficult, if not\nimpossible, to fix boundaries to its ultimate expansion. An expansion\ncoextensive with the completed destinies of mankind.\n\nWe say thus much of our lower instincts, transformed and made glorious\nby reason shining through them; just as the setting sun transforms and\nglorifies the clouds floating high overhead, or the half-translucent\nfoliage of the grove in which we walk. But there belong exclusively to\nMan, instinctive beliefs, impulses, and ideas, which possess a glory\nof their own;--raise him, _first_ above the brutes,--_next_ above\nhimself as he now exists,--and make him know that he may aspire to\nbecome the denizen of a brighter world than this. Among them, is the\nfeeling that Nature herself is (like the tree or cloud illumined by the\nsun), everywhere penetrated by a beauty and a power streaming through\nher;--compared with the reality of which she is but a filmy veil,--or\nit may be an illusive image. The sun himself, the light and life of the\nlower world, symbolizes an existence more truly kindling and ensouling,\nwhich animates and makes brilliant the blue arch of sky. Such thoughts\nas these haunted the first utterances of our race,--and it needed but\nanother step to make us feel that this living light shines within\nourselves,--and that, go where we will, a strength and Majesty go with\nus, which are not of the earth, earthy. Thus, the consciousness grew\nupon Man that his inner being glows with a radiance more sparkling than\nthe stars, to which he lifts his bodily eyes. By-and-bye, he learned\nto think of the heaven within him, as symbolic also;--and to cherish a\ntrembling trust that, when he dies, its brightness will grow pale, and\nvanish away only by reason of a glory which excelleth.\n\nThe Apostle beloved of his Master, told us of a true Light that\nlighteth every man. Yet, we might have been slow to realize the\npurer splendours over-arching our human soul, if they had not\nautotyped themselves on the language we commonly speak. Perhaps, a\nmore convincing proof still to some of us, is what every now and\nthen becomes incidentally known;--the God-ward impulses of a happily\ndeveloped childhood, under circumstances favourable to the growth of\n\"natural piety.\" In the heart of a child, feelings like those we have\ndescribed, dwell untutored, as in their native and and appropriate\nhome. An awe and dread accompany them amongst the world of men, but to\nthe child they are never overpowering or oppressive. His finely-strung\nimagination works painlessly. The voices he hears when no human voice\nspeaks, cause him no fear;--they call to him from a region towards\nwhich his young soul springs up. They soothe him with sensations of\nhope and peace and love unutterable. This yearning affection for things\nunseen, makes the deepest joy of a happy childhood; it is a reason why\nChrist said, \"Of such is the kingdom of Heaven.\"\n\nA beautiful childhood is a very beautiful reality. Partly because\nof the exquisite simplicity which tones down and harmonizes all its\nimpulses. But, very often, its beauty is only known in its loss;--and\nwe mourn in after years over hope, love, and peace, broken down by\nlife's attrition;--yet fair to look upon, even in their ruins.[ag]\n\nNo one is likely to doubt that the belief we have been describing, is\npeculiar to and characteristic of Man. A more subtle question would be\nthis;--Suppose it could be taken away, how nearly would Man and brute\napproach each other?[164] A question deserving the attention of every\none, who lives\n\n    \"In self-adoring pride securely mailed.\"\n\nProbably, the proudest of mankind little think how deeply their\nculture, art, and refinement, are indebted to a faith shared by the\nlowliest. One point, at least, seems clear,--if Morality did not perish\nin the wreck, a true and independent moral sense would bring us back to\na belief in our own souls, their immortality, and their God.\n\nAnother question more essential to our purpose has been buried under\nheaps of fallacy and misconception. Theists are often told that the\nideas of a Deity,--a future life,--and generally all that is conceived\nas supernatural, have no absolute trustworthiness;--they are not\nself-evident axioms, and they cannot be demonstrated. One answer to\nthese alleged difficulties has been implicitly given in the last\nChapter. If such objections are valid at all, they are valid against\nevery practical first-truth therein considered. They are valid against\n_all_ primary practical truths, looked at from the theoretical side,\nand tested by the rules proper to what is called pure Reason;--Reason,\nthat is to say, not applied, but speculative. But, then, it is from\nthis very employment of tests upon truth not _in pari materia_,\nthat the first stage of fallacy begins. The _second_ step in error\nfollows naturally from the first. Compared with the clearness and\ndefinition of mathematics, all other axioms and proofs appear dim and\ndubious. The consequence is, that our minds fall into trains of false\ncomparison on the all-important subject of certitude. Errors of that\nkind are always growing mischiefs; our tongues follow the lead of\nour thoughts, and hazy thinking becomes hazy speaking. Not only so,\nbut words develope themselves into the leaders of thought; and hazy\nspeaking engenders a hazier thinking still. People take mathematical\ncertainty to be the sole type of all true and valuable certainties.\nPractical maxims are spoken of, as merely probable, Right and Wrong as\nthe efflux of moral sentiments.[165] Few seem to be aware _how_ the\nphilosophical arrangements of first-truths ought to be applied. They\nshould be applied to discriminate the _processes_, by which various\nkinds of truths are discoverable;--they stamp a character upon them,\nwhen discovered; but they do _not_ determine the intrinsic worth and\nvalidity of the discoveries.\n\nWhy, let us ask, does Mathematical truth occupy so lofty a position?\nBecause, _first_, the constitution of our nature obliges us to accept\nits axioms, and by consequence each successive step in its impregnable\ndemonstrations. _Next_, because we can verify so many of its theorems\nobjectively. We apply them to remote planetary and stellar spheres\nbeyond our own reach; where our own minds can neither alter nor colour\nanything. What then ought to be the fair and legitimate inference from\nan issue magnificently tried throughout the celestial universe? Surely\nthis, and no other. It confirms, in the very highest possible degree,\nthe truth-telling power of our own human nature. Whatsoever our mental\nconstitution clearly compels us to accept, that same we ought to hold\ntrue, and maintain unswervingly.\n\nHenceforth, therefore, we ought to look upon our Reason as having been\nput upon its conclusive trial. Every year that passes renders the\nverdict if possible more triumphant. We ought, henceforth, to make our\nassent absolute and unhesitating in the case of those other truths,\nwhich, while things continue as they now are, can never be tried and\nconfirmed by an appeal of the same description.\n\nIt is not difficult to see how opposite would have been the issue\nfrom an employment of improper tests;--the test, for instance, of the\n_Unthinkable_. The universe, we should then have said, must be thought\nof as finite or as infinite. Either way it is inconceivable;--therefore\nthe Universe cannot exist objectively at all.\n\nVicious as such a process would be, it is not so faulty as that of\nconfounding the proper methods and attestations of speculative and\npractical truth.[166] Our human consciousness must in _both_ cases\ngive our data. We have to ask and obtain its answers,--but, in the\ntwo different spheres of knowledge, we must frame our interrogatories\ndifferently, and expect assurances differing not in _degree_ of\ncertainty, but in _kind_;--in _value_ to human action;--and in the\n_mode_ of their deliverance. We inquire into Speculative truth by\n_analysing_ it, until we arrive at undemonstrable axioms which assert\ntheir own validity. We assure ourselves that Practical principles are\ntrue by following them in their _synthetic_ growth. Do they spring from\na maxim we find ourselves urged by our own nature to accept,--and the\nopposite of which we cannot but broadly reject;--and do they really\n_work_ in the world,--exert an ennobling influence within their own\ndomain, and intertwine themselves with the other truths and activities\nof our human life? If so, we may be assured of their vitality and\ntheir certitude. We know them, in short, by their stringency,--and by\na happy experience of their power. Consequently, our knowledge ought\nto grow and strengthen, as our human age and the world's age both\nroll on. Practical truth, thus tried and acknowledged, is indeed the\nsilver thread which leads us always. Some shrink from trusting it when\nstretched across the grave; yet, without it, all beyond is lost in\nhaze, and our present life becomes enigmatical and self-contradictory.\n\nLet us then apply the tests (found valid in their own practical sphere)\nto the case of our belief in a Supernatural and supreme Power. But,\nthat we may do so with more evident effect, it will be well to place\nin juxtaposition with it _another_ powerful belief, and our progress\nwill be rendered easier if we fix upon one which has already been,\nin part at least, under discussion. Nothing seems better fitted for\nthis purpose, than what Professor Masson calls \"the paramount fact,\"\nresulting alike to Hamilton and to Mill,--the universal persuasion in\nmen of their own existence, as beings distinct from, but related to, an\nexternal world around them. It will be observed that, thus described,\nthe fact is of a most concrete sort,--our inner reality in relation to\nan outer reality,--just as believing in a Supreme Being we believe in a\nPower that holds solemn relations to our individual selves and to our\ncommon Humanity.\n\nWe have therefore to observe the impression made upon our human\nendowment of practical Reason, when looking face to face at these two\nfact-beliefs, which for brevity's sake we shall call the _Natural_ and\nthe _Supernatural_.\n\nDid the uninstructed and stammering childhood of our race, separate,\nin thought, the _Supernatural_ from surrounding nature? Can we\nabsolutely say either yes or no to this inquiry? The \"Heaven-Father\"\nof pre-historic[ah] day would seem if fully considered to make the\nseparation clear. The type-idea, thus outlined, is drawn, not from\nsymbolizing and personified Nature, but from an actual, living,\nfatherly, Man. And the tendency of primitive Man might rather be to\nraise natural objects into living beings, than to lower persons into\nthings.\n\nIt is so, we are sure, with our children's apprehension of the\n_Natural_. They know a world of persons and things antagonistic to\ntheir own wills and efforts, but they begin by making the things\ninto _persons_. A thwarted baby-boy beats the table, his kitten, and\nhis nurse indifferently. So far as observation has been extended to\nthe religious apprehensions of the very young, they would seem to\nspiritualize the material universe;--to behold unseen powers in the\nchanging clouds, and hear them in the sighing of the wind. Wordsworth's\n\"Ode on Immortality\" is a picture as full of childlike human truth, as\nit is of unearthly beauty.\n\nBut, as regards _both_ principles, the human train of thought is nearly\nsimilar in its first rise, and grows in definiteness and expansion by\na nearly similar process. A true Man sets each principle to work, and\nfrom its working gathers its real value and verification.\n\nIf the world outside him were a phantastic shadow, the practical\nconclusion fairly inferred would be _quietism_. Bolingbroke said to\nKing Richard--\n\n    \"The shadow of your sorrow hath destroyed\n    The shadow of your face.\"\n\nBut, suppose both face and sorrow were themselves only shadows? What\nworth in Man's body then,--what worth in his soaring mind? The natural\nissue would be to drift down the shadowy[167] stream into a darker\nabyss of Nothingness.\n\nSpeculation[168] must lay down its arms, as powerless against such a\nsupposition. The evidence of our senses[169] themselves is resolvable\ninto shadows.\n\nIt was not by speculation that our strong Western will encountered the\nideal enigmas of every day life. Act upon externalities, and they will\n_re_act upon you. As a matter of fact, it is necessary to commence by\nadmitting that the souls of others are as _impenetrable_ to us, as the\nmaterial things into which we cannot force our way. But, things and\npersons react upon us _differently_; and we act upon them in widely\n_different_ ways. By an exertion of our will, we can change or stop a\n_natural_ tide of inorganic antecedents and consequents and direct it\nto our own purposes. _Beings_ like ourselves, we must allure, manage,\ninform, and persuade. Soon we find, by experience, that other human\nbeings are very like ourselves; and the higher animals nearer to us\nthan stocks and stones. We find this through the exercise of our own\ncausal activities upon them.\n\nThe idea of the _Supernatural_ marches along no very dissimilar route.\nThe strong man subjects Nature, but the Supernatural is above both\nit, and him. He cannot even _possess_ the thought of the Supreme.\nWhether he will or no, it _possesses him_. To his reason, Nature\ncannot subsist, as the true and independent ground of anything;--her\nlaws are the servants of his volition;--and her chain of antecedent\nand consequent hangs between a First and a Last, without giving any\nsufficient account of either. If the Universe began in a shining\nNebula, the question remains unsolved,--what first brought the thin\ncloud into being? The practical Reason, confirmed by experience,\ndistinctly perceives that productive nature transforms all things,--but\noriginates nothing;--that, contrariwise, when human nature wills to\ncommit a wrong,--it really _originates_ the crime. A disputant may\nassert that Man's will originates no act;--the criminal is never\nguilty,--and the judge and jury who try him are not answerable for\ntheir own decision. The same disputant may add that the Court in\nwhich, they sit is unreal, and their bodily persons only shadows. The\none set of suppositions is as tenable as the other, and precisely as\nunpractical.\n\nIn the common course of Nature, then, Mankind has learned to maintain,\nas a truth of reason, that the Supernatural Power is a Will,--that is a\nPersonality. In other words Man becomes a Theist.\n\nAs in Natural Realism, so in realistic Theism, we try how our\nprinciples will _work_. Realists in thought, we treat men and\nthings as natural realities; diverse when compared together, but\nalike in outsideness as they stand related to ourselves. Action and\nreaction then go on as are to be expected. Life seems to us one long\nverification of the truth we began by accepting.--And so, too, it is\nwith our belief in a Being Supernatural and Divine. If we succeed in\nfiguring to ourselves a world of adaptation, order, law, progress,\nunity, we have but to open our eyes, and it appears spread out before\nus. If we think that the world's creation would blend all _physical_\nneeds into pleasurable pursuits and satisfactions, we may look and\nsee the union accomplished. If we frame a scheme of trial and _moral_\ndiscipline, to raise the feeble and confirm the strong, its realization\nis not wanting amongst us. From our own feelings, we can imagine how\na Father's eye would look pityingly down upon fear and sorrow, and\nall the strains incidental to moving laws; the attrition of other\nwills, the tumults, failures, ill doings, and perversities of our\nsensitive and social existence. How a Father's hand would bind up\nall that is weak, wild, and wilful in his children, with threads of\nrainbow coloured hope and joyful anticipation; bidding them believe\nthat ere long the uncertain dimness, which is as morning spread upon\nthe mountains, shall brighten into steady splendour, shining on to a\nperfect and unclouded day.\n\nWe find as a matter of fact that this hope is no stranger to the\nhuman breast; that numbers live in it; numbers have died for it; and\npre-eminently those of whom the world was not worthy.\n\nThe growth of thought from a bare idea of the Supernatural to a belief\nin a pure and sublime Theism,--and the sufficient account it renders of\nthe world, ourselves, and our destinies, must be looked upon as matters\nof fact in the work-day history of mankind. Practical human reason\nhas really travelled by this track, and, from day to day, perceives\nnew truths to verify the old conclusion. Every attempt to adapt other\ntheories to the working facts become, by their unfitness for the\npurpose, indirect evidence for Theism. How short a time has passed\nsince Campbell lamented over--\n\n    \"The hopeless dark Idolater of Chance;\"\n\nand since the authors of \"Rejected Addresses\" ridiculed a system\nwhich made the universe an accident.[170]--_Now_, chance sounds\nas strangely in scientific ears as Fate did to our strong-willed\nforefathers. Next, came that unintelligible contradictory phrase, a\n\"_blind intelligence_;\" a thing called a _mind_, that goes it knows\nnot whither, and moves it knows not why. From this thing, immersed in\nthe darkest ignorance, and unconscious even of its own existence, we\nwere asked to believe that arrangement, harmony, excellence, beauty,\nwere the productions. No wonder if men soon concluded that a moving\nforce,--material and soulless,--would equally fulfil the same exalted\nfunctions. And, surely, one _thing_ is an account of the Universe as\nreasonable and as sufficient as the other.\n\nIf we place a non-theistic theory in relation to our human inner\nnature, there ensues the same monstrous incongruity. The plenitude of\nloveliness, which overflows creation, as it were with multitudinous\nwaves of light, we are asked to think of as the work of blind\nnon-being. But, there is a greater plenitude of loveliness, in the\ngood and noble acts, words, and thoughts of one bright soul of\nheaven-aspiring Man. Must we, then, believe that truth, sincerity,\njustice, rightness, goodness, purity, are all the offspring of a\nsomething infinitely lower than our weakest human will?[171]--Is that\nunknown something to be also the beacon of our hopes, the refuge of\neach forlorn and shipwrecked brother, the happiness giving itself to\nsatisfy the unsatisfied aspirations of our long-enduring hearts?\n\nSurely, the mockery of madness could go no further. What can the\nmorally impotent or the morally imperfect do for us? Even to the\ncareless eye of common sense, it is clear at a glance, that with the\n_Impersonal_ our distinctive spiritual life can have no possible\nrelations. If this be so, the very first idea of Supernatural\nPower is not advanced.--Contrariwise, it is distorted, frustrated,\nnullified. And with it is destroyed our trust in our own conscious\nnature. The instinct of immortality lives and moves within us only to\nbetray.--Man,--whose being is the highest reason for the world's whole\nbeing,--is henceforth a palpable inconsistency. There cannot in the\ndreams of fiction be found a stranger tissue of more startling,--or\none might venture to say,--more revolting moral absurdities. And a\nmoral absurdity contradicts the constitution of Man's mind, quite as\nthoroughly as an absurdity purely intellectual. It is, in reality, the\nmost self-condemned of all conceivable contradictions.\n\nLet us place side by side with this issue, _first_, the commonly\nconceived relation between a Personal supreme Being and his\ncreation;--_secondly_, the apprehension of Theistic truth within the\nsoul, as it comes to us substantiated by religious men. We shall, at\nall events, gain the advantage of a strong contrast between Theism\nand non-Theism;--and strong contrast with shadows is often a strong\nenlightenment.\n\nFirst, then, to consider the idea of Creation as the work not of a\nblind thing, but a supremely wise and powerful Being. It is plain\nthat (to say the very least) this idea is encompassed with slighter\nand fewer difficulties. If a doubter is not convinced by the ordinary\nargument from Design, he cannot avoid admitting the fact of its\npossibility;--that it is applicable, and has been applied, argued,\nand reargued, without any overwhelming rejoinder or refutation. And\nthere are _two_ obvious reasons why it has never been successfully\nrefuted. One--the evident truth that, whatever rival theories[172]\nmight or might not be expected to do, this theory explains the world.\nNext--that no other attempted explanations have ever found a First\nground for any existing thing. In the theory of Design it continues\nan open question how far we may conceive the Creator's first act as a\ngrand finality,--the launch of a vast assemblage of worlds formed,--or,\nbeing formed;--so built upon law and guided by far-stretching wisdom,\nthat the Universe sails gloriously through the Ocean of Space like\na thing of Life; each breath of Force, each wave of Time wafting it\nsecurely on. But, let any idea of a true creation be admitted, and no\nbelief in existing laws of any kind, will ever banish the great and\ngood God from the world which He has created and made. His presence\nadds glory to its fabric, and, when we walk in its garden of delights,\nwe feel that He walks and speaks there too.[173]\n\nThe argument from Creation to Creator forms the subject of the next\nChapters. Therefore, we press it no farther here.\n\nThe point to be remembered now, is that this line of reasoning has\nalone offered a tenable explanation of the world's existence. And a\nlike remark holds good of Natural Realism as opposed to Speculative\nIdealism. It is impossible (as we have seen), to prove or disprove\neither by bare argumentative abstractions. But, as a question of\npractical reason, the Natural Realist explains the outer world of\nindividual existences, and his explanation tallies both with its\nphenomena and our own relations to them. Our material progress (that\nantithesis of oriental quietism), depends upon activities we should\nnever have exerted had we not fully believed in a world of working\nenergy within ourselves, and an outside world of reacting forces for us\nto work upon.\n\nFrom mere material progress, let us turn our eyes to the nobler\ncivilization of Mankind. A respect for human life because it _is_\nhuman,--honour paid to all men, inasmuch as manhood possesses an\nintrinsic title to honour,--the desire to do justice and love\nmercy,--sympathy with privation, suffering, and aberration, both moral\nand intellectual,--these are the true elements that soften and improve\nour race. And they are pre-eminently the dowry of nations believing in\nTheism. Theism is to these spiritual powers what Realism has been to\nmaterial powers. Human beings are, by these two agencies, brought into\ncontact with both the outer and the inner work of life. And as regards\nlife's central work, the lesson of history is now what it always has\nbeen. To move man from a lower to a higher sphere, his soul must first\nbe deeply stirred. And a spiritual stir and movement is the applied\nstrength of a spiritual power.[ai]\n\nWe propose, then, to see by example, what Theism may be to mankind.\nMany examples will not be needed, provided those selected are typical.\nWe shall therefore choose some two or three distinctive types.\n\nThe task of selection reminds us to protest, once for all, against the\nweak and cynical way of illustrating human nature which threatens to\nbecome prevalent. If we want to see what a true man is, we must not\nseek his fossil effigies, by delving into the scanty and disputable\nrecords of prim\u00e6val savagery,[aj] and unearthing the crumbled seeds\nof better things, which died before coming to perfection. It is like\nestimating the Oak from a mouldy Acorn. It is worse!--Barbarism tends\nto distortion and degeneracy. We might as wisely pronounce a maimed\ndwarf with carefully flattened forehead, the beau ideal of human\nstrength and beauty, as seek to know the mind of man amid its wrecks\nand perversities. We must rather look at our race in its strongest and\nnoblest development. The healthy acorn grows into a spreading oak;--the\ntruly human child becomes, not a crooked dwarf, but an upright\nintellectual giant. The investigation of maimed deformities may have\nits interest for comparative purposes, but no ancient Greek nor Hebrew,\nno modern European nor American, ought to be painted with lineaments\nwhich are revolting to his higher nature. Let us help the savage by\nevery means we can, _except_ by asking him to sit for a _model of\nHumanity_. When we do this, we have assuredly lost our very best reason\nfor helping him at all.\n\nThe examples following, no one will doubt to be types of true and\nhighly developed men. The first, is intended to shew how Theism\nstands out before the apprehension of a Man engaged in searching out\n_abstract_ truth.\n\nThe Philosophy of Sir W. Hamilton has become familiar to most people,\nso far as his theory of \"the Conditioned\" is concerned. They are\naware that his mind dwelt on the speculative difficulties surrounding\na knowledge of the Absolute, the self-subsisting First Cause, and\ntrue Ground of all things. Yet, to the veracity of God he appeals\nfor the veraciousness of our primary beliefs. Over against a whole\nschool of Idealists, he places, as the one fatal objection, this\nsame veracity--\"Either maintaining the veracity of God, they must\nsurrender their hypothesis;--or, maintaining their hypothesis, they\nmust surrender the veracity of God.\"[174] And, if the existence of a\nDeity is known, there can be no doubt that His truth is amongst the\nhighest and clearest _to us_, of all His essential attributes. We\ncannot (as Sir William says) \"suppose that we are created capable of\nintelligence, in order to be made the victims of delusion; that God\nis a deceiver, and the root of our nature a lie.\"[175] Therefore, he\ndrew a wide distinction between, on the one hand, knowing the Absolute\nand the Supreme so as to examine and explain His nature, and, on the\nother hand, believing that He truly is, so as to affirm the fact of His\nbeing, and the necessary consequences of His existence. \"When I deny,\"\nhe writes, \"that the Infinite can by us be _known_, I am far from\ndenying that by us it is, must, and ought to be, _believed_!\"[176]--In\nthis belief, Sir William saw a sufficient reason for accepting, as\nMr. Mill advises all to accept, \"the inexplicable fact.\" And indeed\nthe problem of truth perpetually does come, (evade the conclusion as\nwe will), in one shape or another, to this same necessity of final\nacceptance. Mr. Coleridge's _Friend_ is one long investigation into\nthis necessity, and he fairly closes his argument by saying that\nalways,--start from whatever point we may,--\"reason will find a chasm,\nwhich the moral being only, which the spirit and religion of man alone\ncan fill up.\"[177]\n\n3 For Sir W. Hamilton, Theism bridged the vast abyss! No one could\nmore strongly estimate its vastness, and the poverty of our visual\npowers when we stand beside it;--the dim feeling which makes us shrink\nback from its awful verge. But Theism became to him the strength of\na noble life;--a life of much self-sacrifice, and meagre earthly\nrecompense.[ak]\n\nThe next typical thinker we shall quote is one pre-eminent for his\ncareful study of the constitution of _Man_, the course, the aims,\nand aptitudes of his _moral_ existence. It seems hardly necessary\nto add the name of Bishop Butler. The reader will find pleasure and\ninstruction, if he peruses Butler's two sermons on the Love of God,\nfrom the second of which the following passages are cited:--\n\n \"Nothing is more certain, than that an infinite Being may himself be,\n if he pleases, the supply to all the capacities of our nature. All the\n common enjoyments of life are from the faculties he hath endued us\n with, and the objects he hath made suitable to them. He may himself\n be to us infinitely more than all these: he may be to us all that we\n want. As our understanding can contemplate itself, and our affections\n be exercised upon themselves by reflection, so may each be employed\n in the same manner upon any other mind; and since the supreme Mind,\n the Author and Cause of all things, is the highest possible object\n to himself, he may be an adequate supply to all the faculties of our\n souls; a subject to our understanding, and an object to our affections.\n\n \"Consider then: when we shall have put off this mortal body, when we\n shall be divested of sensual appetites, and those possessions which\n are now the means of gratification shall be of no avail; when this\n restless scene of business and vain pleasures, which now diverts us\n from ourselves, shall be all over; we, our proper self, shall still\n remain; we shall still continue the same creatures we are, with wants\n to be supplied, and capacities of happiness. We must have faculties of\n perception, though not sensitive ones; and pleasure or uneasiness from\n our perceptions, as now we have.\n\n \"There are certain ideas, which we express by the words, order,\n harmony, proportion, beauty, the furthest removed from anything\n sensual. Now, what is there in those intellectual images, forms, or\n ideas, which begets that approbation, love, delight, and even rapture,\n which is seen in some persons' faces upon having those objects present\n to their minds?--'Mere enthusiasm!'--Be it what it will: there are\n objects, works of nature and of art, which all mankind have delight\n from, quite distinct from their affording gratification to sensual\n appetites; and from quite another view of them, than as being for\n their interest and further advantage. The faculties from which we\n are capable of these pleasures, and the pleasures themselves, are as\n natural, and as much to be accounted for, as any sensual appetite\n whatever, and the pleasure from its gratification. Words to be sure\n are wanting upon this subject: to say, that everything of grace and\n beauty throughout the whole of nature, everything excellent and\n amiable shared in differently lower degrees by the whole creation,\n meet in the Author and Cause of all things; this is an inadequate\n and perhaps improper way of speaking of the divine nature; but it is\n manifest that absolute rectitude, the perfection of being, must be in\n all senses, and in every respect, the highest object to the mind....\n\n \".... Now, as our capacities of perception improve, we shall have,\n perhaps by some faculty entirely new, a perception of God's presence\n with us in a nearer and stricter way; since it is certain he is\n more intimately present with us than anything else can be. Proof of\n the existence and presence of any being is quite different from the\n immediate perception, the consciousness of it. What then will be the\n joy of heart, which his presence, and _the light of his countenance_,\n who is the life of the universe, will inspire good men with, when they\n shall have a sensation, that he is the sustainer of their being, that\n they exist in him; when they shall feel his influence to cheer and\n enliven and support their frame, in a manner of which we have now no\n conception? He will be in a literal sense _their strength and their\n portion for ever_.\"[178]\n\nOf the last writer here adduced, it is needless to say more than that\namongst living authors, he is rarely equalled in his subtle analysis of\nthe _tender and emotional side of humanity_.\n\n \"The personal relation sought, is discerned and felt. The Soul\n understands and knows that God is _her_ God; dwelling with her more\n closely than any creature can; yea, neither Stars, nor Sea, nor\n smiling Nature hold God so intimately as the bosom of the Soul. What\n is He to it? what, but the Soul of the soul? It no longer seems\n profane to say, 'God is my bosom friend: God is for me, and I am for\n Him.' So Joy bursts out into Praise, and all things look brilliant;\n and hardship seems easy, and duty becomes delight, and contempt is not\n felt, and every morsel of bread is sweet....\n\n \".... But Oh philosopher, is all this a contemptible dream? thou canst\n explain it all? or thou scornest it all? Whatever _theory_ thou may'st\n form concerning it, it is not the less a fact of human nature: one of\n some age too: for David thirsted after God and exceedingly rejoiced\n in Him, and so did Paul; and the feelings which they describe are\n reproduced in the present day. To despise wide-spread enduring facts\n is _not_ philosophic; and when they conduce to power of goodness and\n inward happiness, it might be wise to learn the phenomena by personal\n experience, _before_ theorizing about them. It was not a proud thing\n of Paul to say, but a simple truth, that the spiritual cannot be\n judged by the unspiritual.\n\n \"The single thought, 'God is for my soul, and my soul is for Him,'\n suffices to fill a universe of feeling, and gives rise to a hundred\n metaphors. Spiritual persons have exhausted human relationships in the\n vain attempt to express their full feeling of what God (or Christ)\n is to them. Father, Brother, Friend, King, Master, Shepherd, Guide,\n are common titles. In other figures, God is their Tower, their Glory,\n their Rock, their Shield, their Sun, their Star, their Joy, their\n Portion, their Hope, their Trust, their Life.\"[179]\n\nSuch is Theism, penetrating the head and heart of Man; appealing to his\nintellect, his conscience, and his affections. Such is Theism; sending\nupwards, out of Man's spirit, aspirations which \"dumb driven cattle\"\ncannot breathe--often the sole sweet incense from Earth to Heaven. It\nis possible that, to some readers, the passages extracted will sound\nlike the accents of a foreign tongue. Of such it may properly be asked,\nwhether any man has a right _so_ to call in question another sane man's\nhonest consciousness, _as_ to deny its reality, worth, and excellence?\nThere are ears on which the music of Shakespeare's words, or Mozart's\nnotes, fall tuneless and unmeaning. Yet, who on that account would\ndeny the true sense and delight of poetry, rhythm, and melody? We\ncannot, in reason, forget that even from ordinary men a small amount\nof affirmation, if conscientious, unselfish, and collected, outweighs\nand annihilates a host of perplexing doubts. But, every great Man's\nthought is at least a grand fact; every expression of it a benefaction\nto his fellow-men. And, as respects the mighty power with which Theism\nstirs and impels the soul, we may rest absolutely assured that, where\none human being is found to give it utterance, thousands have felt the\nmovement, and have silently governed their life's work by it. Happily,\nthe brightest gifts of our existence are also the commonest;--the\nsunshine of the world, and the sunshine of the Soul.\n\nCountless numbers have, indeed, professed to discern by an inward sense\nthe reflected reality of a Supreme Being. They who feel it most deeply,\ndo not attempt to explain the Substance of which an imperfect copy\nexists within themselves, acknowledged, yet inexplicable; at once the\ngreatest enigma, and the noblest fact of their essential being. They\nare content to look upwards to the Supreme Mind they have found;--to\ntreasure such knowledge as they have; and adore its object. Many of\nthose who have thus believed and acted are amongst the most excellent\nand perfect of our race.\n\nHas any theory of the Universe which ignores the original of an image\ndiscovered within ourselves, accounted for what we perceive through our\nsenses, our consciousness, and our moral insight,--so well as _that_\ntheory which acknowledges and reverences a God?\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[ac] \"In vain,\" says Hume's Cleanthes, \"In vain would the sceptic make\na distinction between science and common life, or between one science\nand another. The arguments, employed in all, if just, are of a similar\nnature, and contain the same force and evidence. Or if there be any\ndifference among them, the advantage lies entirely on the side of\ntheology and natural religion.\"--_Dialogues, etc._, Part I. sub. fin.\n\nAnd our ultimate appeal--as for example concerning the subject next\ndiscussed in this chapter--is, he observes, to an instinctive operation\nof the mind which obliges us to accept and act upon what we cannot\nexplain. Writing in his own person, Mr. Hume observes, \"As nature has\ntaught us the use of our limbs, without giving us the knowledge of the\nmuscles and nerves by which they are actuated, so has she implanted in\nus an instinct, which carries forward the thought in a correspondent\ncourse to that which she has established among external objects; though\nwe are ignorant of those powers and forces on which this regular course\nand succession of objects totally depends.\"--_Inquiry concerning the\nHuman Understanding._ Section V., end. Compare footnote [d]. to this\nchapter, p. 269 _post_.\n\n[ad] The word Belief has been used in a variety of senses by modern\nwriters of differing views from Jacobi to Sir. W. Hamilton, from Dr.\nNewman to Mr. Herbert Spencer.\n\n\"This word,\" Mr. Spencer says, \"is habitually applied to dicta of\nconsciousness for which no proof can be assigned: both those which\nare unprovable because they underlie all proof, and those which\nare unprovable because of the absence of evidence.\" And again; \"we\ncommonly say we 'believe' a thing for which we can assign some\npreponderating evidence, or concerning which we have received some\nindefinable impression.... And it is the peculiarity of these beliefs,\nas contrasted with cognitions, that their connexions with antecedent\nstates of consciousness may be easily severed, instead of being\ndifficult to sever. But unhappily, the word 'belief' is also applied\nto each of those temporarily or permanently indissoluble connexions in\nconsciousness, for the acceptance of which the only warrant is that it\ncannot be got rid of.... Thus the two opposite poles of knowledge go\nunder the same name; and by the reverse connotations of this name, as\nused for the most coherent and least coherent relations of thought,\nprofound misconceptions have been generated.\"\n\nMr. Spencer made these remarks at separate intervals of time, and has\nrepeated them in 1874 (_Essays_, III. 259-60). It would therefore\nappear that he thinks little has recently been done to discriminate the\nsignifications of so ambiguous a term.\n\nThis chapter endeavours to investigate a small number of the genus\n\"Beliefs\" to which the _differentia_ \"Of Reason\" has been added by way\nof distinction. It also attempts to offer a contribution towards the\nuseful work of explaining their specific validity, and if its argument\nbe correct, they constitute a very important definable species of the\nGenus, carrying with them a persuasion pre-eminently their own.\n\nOn his page 260, last referred to, Mr. Spencer remarks,--\"that the\nbelief which the moral and religious feelings are said to yield of a\npersonal God, is not one of the beliefs which are unprovable because\nthey underlie all proof\"--and adds that works on Natural Theology treat\nthat Belief as _inferential_.\n\nThe view taken of this moral and religious belief in the present Essay,\nis that it is in its own nature _both_ primary and inferential. The\nformer of these aspects is the one now under discussion.\n\n[154] Compare Fowler's Inductive Logic, p. 29. [Since the reference was\nmade, Mr. Fowler has become Professor of Logic in the University of\nOxford.]\n\n[155] Mr. Fowler, in the little volume just referred to, describes\nanother \"Theory of the Origin of Universal Beliefs,\" as follows:--\"It\nwould admit that all beliefs alike are ultimately derived from\nexperience, and still it would freely adopt the language that there\nare some beliefs which are 'native to the human mind.' The word\n'experience' as ordinarily employed by psychologists, includes not\nonly the experience of the individual, but the recorded experience of\nmankind. On the theory, however, of which we are now speaking, it has\na still more extended meaning; it includes experience, or to speak\nmore strictly, a peculiar facility for forming certain experiences,\n_transmitted_ by hereditary descent from generation to generation.\nWhile some ideas occur only to particular individuals, at particular\ntimes, there are others which, from the frequency and constancy with\nwhich they are obtruded upon men's minds at all times and under\nall circumstances, become, after an accumulated experience of many\ngenerations, _connatural_, as it were, to the human mind. We assume\nthem, often unconsciously, in our special perceptions, and when the\npropositions, which embody them, are propounded to us, we find it\nimpossible, on reflection, to doubt their truth. It is by personal\nexperience of external objects and their relations that each man\nrecognises them, but the _tendency_ to recognise them is transmitted,\nlike the physical or mental peculiarities of race, from preceding\ngenerations, and is anterior to any special experience whatever on\nthe part of the individual. This theory, to which much of modern\nspeculation appears to be converging, is advocated with great ability\nin the works of Mr. Herbert Spencer.\" _Inductive Logic_, p. 31.\n\nThis account of our Belief in the Inductive Principle agrees, in\neffect, with the opinion of those who hold that our acceptance of its\ntruth resembles our acceptance of Mathematical Truths in _two_ very\nimportant respects: (1) Its _Certitude_. To use Dr. Whewell's words;\n\"We are as certain of it as of the truths of arithmetic and geometry.\nWe cannot doubt that it must apply to all events past and future, in\nevery part of the universe, just as truly as to those occurrences which\nwe have ourselves observed. _What_ causes produce what effects;--what\nis the cause of any particular event;--what will be the effect of any\npeculiar process;--these are points on which experience may enlighten\nus. Observation and experience may be requisite, to enable us to\njudge respecting such matters. But that every event has _some_ cause,\nExperience cannot prove any more than she can disprove. She can add\nnothing to the evidence of the truth, however often she may exemplify\nit. This doctrine, then, cannot have been acquired by her teaching,\"\nWhewell's _Hist. of Scientific Ideas_, B. III. Cap. ii.\n\n(2) In the fact of its being _intuitive_; that is, as Mr. Fowler says,\n\"connatural,\" or \"native to the human mind.\"\n\nWhether we can trace the process through which it became one of the\nmental possessions characteristic of Mankind is a further question, and\na very curious one. The subjects of improvement by education, and of\nthe transmission of improvements thus acquired among men and the lower\nanimals, belong in part to our next Chapter;--they are, of course,\ndeeply interesting to every philanthropist, every promoter of true\nprogress and wholesome civilization.\n\n[156] Galen remarks upon the immediate activity of animal instinct\nprior to example or habituation. Most Naturalists know his experiment\nof hatching three different sorts of eggs together. He was much struck\nto see the young aquatic bird, reptile, and eaglet, betake themselves\nat once, each to his vocation. Some persons referred these instincts\nto the influence of organs fitted for definite uses, yet, observes\nGalen, the young calf will butt before he has got horns. A good deal\nmight be added to Galen's rejoinder. Animals seem often to work without\nfitness of organization,--or one might almost say in defiance of their\norgans. \"There is nothing,\" says Sir C. Bell, \"in the configuration\nof the black bear, particularly adapted for his catching fish; yet he\nwill sit, on his hinder extremities, by the side of a stream, morning\nor evening, on the watch, like a practised fisher, and so perfectly\nmotionless as to deceive the eye of the Indian, who mistakes him for\nthe burnt trunk of a tree; when he sees his opportunity favourable,\nhe will thrust out his fore-paw, and seize a fish with incredible\ncelerity. The exterior organ is not, in this instance, the cause of the\nhabit or of the propensity; and if we thus see the instinct bestowed\nwithout the appropriate organ, may we not the more readily believe,\nin other examples, when the two are conjoined, that the habit exists\nwith the instrument, although not through it?\" (_Bridgewater Treatise_,\nChap. x. p. 250.)--In Captain Cook's third voyage there is another\nanecdote of bears equally curious. \"The wild deer (barein) are far\ntoo swift for those lumbering sportsmen; so the bear perceives them\nat a distance by the scent; and, as they herd in low grounds, when he\napproaches them, he gets upon the adjoining eminence, from whence he\nrolls down pieces of rock; nor does he quit his ambush, and pursue,\nuntil he finds that some have been maimed.\" (Vol. 3, p. 306.)\n\nIn such cases as these, there is a manifest want of correspondence\nbetween animal organisms and animal instincts, which many naturalists\nconsider essentially interdependent. Yet on their mutual action and\nreaction some have founded a theory of evolution.\n\n[157] \"We have in the Veda the invocation _Dya[=u]s p\u00edtar_, the Greek\n[Greek: Zeu pater], the Latin _Jupiter_; and that means in all the\nthree languages what it meant before these three languages were torn\nasunder--it means Heaven-Father. These two words are not mere words;\nthey are to my mind the oldest poem, the oldest prayer of mankind,\nor at least of that pure branch of it to which we belong--and I am\nas firmly convinced that this prayer was uttered, that this name was\ngiven to the unknown God before Sanskrit was Sanskrit, and Greek was\nGreek, as when I see the Lord's Prayer in the languages of Polynesia\nand Melanesia, I feel certain that it was first uttered in the language\nof Jerusalem.\" Professor Max M\u00fcller's _Science of Religion_. New Ed. p.\n172.\n\n[158] This then would seem to be an instance of wide spread \"moral\nregression.\"\n\n[ae] Our deep-rooted tendency to trust human testimony may yield a\nvery curious example of the difficulties presented by the whole class\nof pre-rational beliefs. Mr. J. Mill in accordance with his system of\nforegone Associations \"resolves\" this case as follows (_Analysis_ I.\np. 385-6): \"Belief in testimony is but a case of the anticipation of\nthe future from the past; and belief in the uniformity of the laws\nof nature is but another name for the same thing.... The testimony\nuniformly calls up the idea of the reality of the event, so closely,\nthat I cannot disjoin them. But the idea, irresistibly forced upon me,\nof a real event, is Belief.\"\n\nOn this explanation Mr. Bain remarks, \"The belief in Testimony is\nderived from the primary credulity of the mind, in certain instances\nleft intact under the wear and tear of adverse experience. Hardly\nany fact of the human mind is better attested than the primitive\ndisposition to receive all testimony with unflinching credence. It\nnever occurs to the child to question any statement made to it, until\nsome positive force on the side of scepticism has been developed.\nGradually we find that certain testimonies are inconsistent with fact;\nwe have, therefore, to go through a long education in discriminating\nthe good testimonies from the bad. To the one class, we adhere with the\nprimitive force of conviction that in the other class has been shaken\nand worn away by the shocks of repeated contradictions.\"\n\nIt seems quite possible that our \"primary credulity\" may be one example\nof a wider spread feeling of reliance engendered in part by affection\nand dependence. Its force varies considerably in various minds. Women\nwhose lives have been happy and free from disappointment retain much\nof this primary intuitive belief to the end of their days. Among men,\nthe trust in Testimony becomes controlled by their power of balancing\nprobabilities; a faculty in which the very credulous and also the very\nsceptical are often observed to be deficient. The disappointed of both\nsexes proverbially incline to Scepticism.\n\n[159] _Metaph._ I. 44.\n\n[160] Acts xvii. 27, 28. Romans i. 32; ii. 14 seq.\n\n[161] Most persons have read with delight the observations on Insect\nArchitecture from Huber downwards. Birds are generally well watched\nand well reported. Many Naturalists have written on these subjects,\nfrom a hope of creating in the minds of men some softer interest for\ntheir humble companions. Mr. Jesse na\u00efvely prefaces a collection of\nanecdotes, by saying that, of all the nations in Europe, our own\ncountrymen are perhaps the least inclined to treat the brute creation\nwith tenderness.\n\nWilson long ago observed that the nest building of birds was not always\nthe same in the same species. The older birds built the better nests.\n\nM. Pouchet of Rouen proved that when the new streets of that city were\nerected, the window-swallows altered their nests and substantially\nimproved them. A short account of his observations will be found in\nWallace's _Contributions_, 228 A. Mr. Wallace adds several instances of\nbad nest building, especially by pigeons, rooks, and window-swallows, a\ncircumstance also noticed by White of Selborne.\n\nAmongst the most remarkable bird-families with special ideas of\nconstruction, are the mound-builders, and bower birds of Australia,\ndescribed by Mr. Gould. The former hatch their eggs in hillocks\ncontrived to retain during the night, amid their warm vegetable\nlinings, the solar heat of each successive day. The nests of one family\nare about a yard high and three wide. In another family, mounds of\nfive yards in height and twelve in girth seem not uncommon; and the\ncircumference of one mound in particular measured full fifty yards.\nThese larger mounds are the work of many birds, through many years, and\ntheir firm sides are covered by ancient forest growth.\n\nThe bower birds construct over-arching alleys of curved branches,\ndecorated with pretty grasses, gay feathers, shells and bones,\nparticularly near the entrances. These bowers seem to be used as\nmeeting and recreation places for both sexes. They vary to some extent\namongst the different species of this singular tribe.\n\nThere can be no doubt of the power of adaptation among animals;--and\nthose who study them most are least surprised at its extent. Horses\nwill learn to go up and down stairs, cats to undo door latches; and\none pony mentioned by Jesse used to unfasten the stable door, open and\nrob the corn chest. Still more curious, is the American bird called\n_neunt\u00f6dter_, which catches grasshoppers and spears them upon twigs,\nnot for the shamble-purposes of the butcher bird, but simply as baits\nto catch and eat the smaller birds attracted by the spoil.\n\nSchleiden (_Plant_ 232), tells a most singular story of a Kangaroo who\ntried to drown his pursuer, and shewed considerable craft in the way\nhe set about the drowning. After knocking the hunter backwards into a\npond, the \"old man\" (Australian for Kangaroo) kept pushing the poor\nfellow's head under water every time he raised it up. If Kangaroo had\nnever drowned a human being before, he must have proceeded by analogy,\nand argued, as some Naturalists do, from the brute to the man. A dog,\nmentioned by Jesse, endeavoured to save his drowning master's life\nby the reverse process to Kangaroo's, and would not let the beloved\nhead disappear under water for many a wintry hour after life had been\nextinguished. (_Country Life_, p. 119.)\n\nA person reflecting on these and similar facts, does not feel much\nsurprised at Aristotle's appreciation of animal intelligence, (_e.\ng._, _Histori\u00e6_ viii. 1, 2,) \"[Greek: h\u00f4s gar en anthr\u00f4p\u00f4 techn\u00ea kai\nsophia kai synesis, hout\u00f4s eniois t\u00f4n z\u00f4\u00f4n esti tis hetera toiaut\u00ea\nphysik\u00ea dynamis.]\" The animal power of adaptation, travelling beyond\nthe routine of instinctive action, probably struck the philosopher very\nstrongly.\n\n[162] These barricades are curiously galleried and casemated, like\nthe defences of a fortress. The best account of them is given by the\naccurate and interesting Huber.\n\n[163] In Aristotle's Introduction to Physical Science, he remarks that\nSense grasps at Wholes, so that in a certain way, the general may seem\nto take precedence with us of the particular. Language is a proof of\nthis--Children's talk is apt to run in concretes;--every man or woman\nis a father or mother to them. See _Phys. Ausc._ I. 1, with Pacius'\nnote. The old commentator unties a knot which some moderns appear to\nhave tied fast again.\n\n_Addition._ Aristotle's illustration, it is alleged (_e. g._ by Dr.\nWhewell), goes in the wrong direction; fathers and mothers are less\ncomprehensive terms than men and women; the truth seems to be that\nchildren fail to perceive the differences between parents and other\nhuman beings;--therefore they call men and women, parents. Pacius\nsays:--\"Nunc igitur totum esse nobis notius, probat \u00e0 signo, id est,\nargumento sumto ab infantibus, qui initi\u00f2 non distinguunt patrem ab\naliis viris, nec matrem ab aliis mulieribus: postea ver\u00f2 distinguunt:\nnempe, quia ab initio habuerunt cognitionem magis confusam, neque\ncognoverunt proprietates parentis, sed tantum eum noverunt sub ratione\nuniversali, quatenus est homo, ideoque non potuerunt eum ab aliis\nhominibus sejungere. Postea ver\u00f2 progredientes ad cognitionem magis\nparticularem, possunt patrem ab aliis discernere.\" Ed. 1608, p. 346.\n\n[af] It is quite conceivable that the presence of Reason may from its\nfirst dawn, give rise to a very wide difference between the highest\nanimal instincts, and the lowest instinctive impulses of Man. The\ndiscussion would be far too extensive for these pages; but it is\nobvious that such a difference might clearly account for much that is\nobscure in the twilight territory of Mind.\n\nHume, however, appears to have thought otherwise, as may be perceived\nin the Conclusion of his _Reason of Animals_. From his mention of\n\"experimental reasoning\" and the instances adduced, he would seem to\nattribute our Inductive process to a _simple_ instinct. He writes\nthus:--\"Though animals learn many parts of their knowledge from\nobservation, there are also many parts of it which they derive from\nthe original hand of Nature, which much exceed the share of capacity\nthey possess on ordinary occasions, and in which they improve\nlittle or nothing, by the longest practice and experience. These we\ndenominate INSTINCTS, and are so apt to admire as something\nvery extraordinary and inexplicable by all the disquisitions of human\nunderstanding. But our wonder will perhaps cease or diminish when we\nconsider that the experimental reasoning itself, which we possess in\ncommon with beasts, and on which the whole conduct of life depends, is\nnothing but a species of instinct or mechanical power, that acts in us\nunknown to ourselves, and in its chief operations is not directed by\nany such relations or comparison of ideas as are the proper objects of\nour intellectual faculties. Though the instinct be different, yet still\nit is an instinct, which teaches a man to avoid the fire, as much as\nthat which teaches a bird, with such exactness, the art of incubation,\nand the whole economy and order of its nursery.\" Compare foot-note (a)\nto this chapter, p. 255 _ante_.\n\n[ag] \"Wisdom is Alchemy. Else it could not be Wisdom. This is its\nunfailing characteristic, that it 'finds good in everything,' that it\nrenders all things more precious. In this respect also does it renew\nthe spirit of childhood within us: while foolishness hardens our hearts\nand narrows our thoughts, it makes us feel a childlike curiosity and\na childlike interest about all things. When our view is confined to\nourselves, nothing is of value, except what ministers in one way or\nother to our own personal gratification: but in proportion as it\nwidens, our sympathies increase and multiply: and when we have learnt\nto look on all things as God's works, then, as His works, they are all\nendeared to us.\n\n\"Hence nothing can be further from true wisdom, than the mask of it\nassumed by men of the world, who affect a cold indifference about\nwhatever does not belong to their own immediate circle of interests or\npleasures.\" _Guesses at Truth_, 2nd Ed. 2nd Series, p. 200.\n\n[164] \"Try to conceive a man without the ideas of God, eternity,\nfreedom, will, absolute truth, of the good, the true, the beautiful,\nthe infinite. An animal endowed with a memory of appearances and of\nfacts might remain. But the man will have vanished, and you have\ninstead a creature, _more subtle than any beast of the field_, but\nlikewise _cursed above every beast of the field; upon the belly must it\ngo, and dust must it eat all the days of its life_. But I recal myself\nfrom a train of thoughts little likely to find favour in this age of\nsense and selfishness.\" Coleridge, _Church and State_. Note p. 50, Ed.\n1839.\n\n[165] Some people we may remark are unable to see any difference\nbetween sentiments and sentimentalities.\n\n[166] It was by a reverse procedure that Kant shewed his greatness. He\nkept the two fields of thought apart, and applied to each a criticism\nunsparing, but appropriate. Nothing could be more decisive than the\nresult, though darkened in some degree by the critic's peculiar\ntechnicalities. Moral truth was placed upon the most sublime of\nelevations. Speculative reason could never rise beyond the limits of\nconditioned truth; any attempt to extend its sphere issued in antinomy\nor blank negation. It left the human mind apparently oscillating\nbetween Idealism and limited Insight. But to this must be added a most\nimportant point too commonly forgotten. Though Speculative reason does\nnot demonstrably prove, it renders _conceivable_ by us those highest\nof all Ideas which our Practical reason shews to be necessarily and\nunquestionably _certain_ for every one of us. Moral Truth thus opens\nto Man's eye a clear vista into the Timeless and the Absolute, to an\nimmortal life beyond the grave, and to God the Sovereign both of Nature\nand of Man. It tells us the secret of true Causation, and with it of\nall that is most worth living for, the intrinsically greatest and Best\nof Humanity. And it binds every human being, as by golden links, to\nthat ever present Divine throne, the shrine and oracle set up within\nhis own breast. We ought always to remember that upon those grand\ntruths which if practically certain cannot be ultimately false, Kant\nstaked his all. They were the crown alike of his labours and his life.\n\n_Addition._--By these remarks the present writer does not intend\nsubscribing to all the Kantian conclusions respecting pure Speculative\nReason, much less to those that have been asserted by many of Kant's\ndisciples. Difference of opinion on such conclusions cannot, however,\neffect an honest appreciation of the clear and elevated principles\nmaintained by Kant on the subject of independent Morality, as\ncontradistinguished from the scheme which used to be termed Selfish,\nbut is now commonly called Utilitarian.--See pp. 93-6 _ante_.\n\n[ah] \"Thousands of years it may be before Homer and the Veda ... Dyaus\ndid not mean the blue sky, nor was it simply the sky personified; it\nwas meant for something else.... We shall have to learn the same lesson\nagain and again in the Science of Religion, viz. that the place whereon\nwe stand is holy ground. Thousands of years have passed since the Aryan\nnations separated to travel to the North and the South, the West and\nthe East: they have each formed their languages, they have each founded\nempires and philosophies, they have each built temples and razed them\nto the ground; they have all grown older, and it may be wiser and\nbetter; but when they search for a name for what is most exalted and\nyet most dear to every one of us, when they wish to express both awe\nand love, the infinite and the finite, they can but do what their old\nfathers did when gazing up to the eternal sky, and feeling the presence\nof a Being as far as far and as near as near can be: they can but\ncombine the self-same words, and utter once more the primeval Aryan\nprayer, Heaven-Father, in that form which will endure for ever, 'Our\nFather which art in Heaven.'\"--Max M\u00fcller, _Lectures on the Science of\nReligion_, pp. 171-2, 3.\n\n[167] Compare the Indian phrase \"the magical illusions of reality, the\nso-called M\u00e2y\u00e2 of creation.\" Max M\u00fcller's _Sanskrit Literature_, p. 19.\nAlso Ritter's _Gesch. der Philosophie_, I. 101 seq., and the account in\nboth of the philosophy of Quietism. The attractive side of it is given\nby Max M\u00fcller, pp. 18, 19, and 29. The National results are elegantly\npainted, pp. 30, 31. He concludes: \"It might therefore be justly said\nthat India has no place in the political history of the world.... India\nhas moved in such a small and degraded circle of political existence\nthat it remained almost invisible to the eyes of other nations.\"\n\nFew feelings are more deeply rooted, as in our individual, so in our\ncollective human nature, than this same conclusion. Quietism culminates\nwhen Action appears useless because of a conceived Necessity or\nUnreality of Nature:--\"Life is but a Dream--Let all sit still and fold\ntheir hands to slumber.\"\n\n[168] Speculatively considered, what can the weapon commonly called\nargument do against Idealism? Both sides allow that man can neither\ncause nor annihilate sensible impressions. But they are supposably\nideal phrases of susceptibility, which may be explained in more ways\nthan one. On the inability of most men--(particularly Scotchmen,)\nto comprehend Berkeley's position, see _Fraser's Ed._, IV. 366, 7,\n8, note. It gave rise to notably absurd rejoinders: \"With the witty\nVoltaire ten thousand cannon balls, and ten thousand dead men, were\nten thousand ideas, according to Berkeley. There is as much subtlety\nof thought, and more humour, in the Irish story of Berkeley's visit to\nSwift on a rainy day, when, by the Dean's orders, he was left to stand\nbefore the unopened door, because, if his philosophy was true, he could\nas easily enter with the door shut as open.\"\n\n[169] \"We cannot possibly identify the perception of _expanded colour_,\nwhich is all that originally constitutes seeing, with the perception of\n_felt resistance_, which is all that originally constitutes touching.\nColoured extension is antithetical to felt extension. In fact, we do\nnot see, we never saw, and we never can see the orange of mere touch;\nwe do not touch, we never touched, and we never can touch the orange of\nmere sight.\" _Ibid._ p. 394.\n\n[170]\n\n    \"From floating elements in chaos hurl'd,\n    Self-form'd of atoms, sprang the infant world:\n    No great _First Cause_ inspired the happy plot,\n    But all was matter--and no matter what.\n    Atoms, attracted by some law occult,\n    Settling in spheres, the globe was the result:\n    Pure child of _Chance_, which still directs the ball,\n    As rotatory atoms rise or fall.\n    In ether launch'd, the peopled bubble floats,\n    A mass of particles, and confluent motes,\n\n    \"So nicely poised, that if one atom flings\n    Its weight away, aloft the planet springs,\n    And wings its course through realms of boundless space,\n    Outstripping comets in eccentric race.\n    Add but one atom more, it sinks outright\n    Down to the realms of Tartarus and night.\"\n\n    \"_Rejected Addresses_,\" pp. 115, 116.\n\n\n[171] \"What are the core and essence of this hypothesis? Strip it naked\nand you stand face to face with the notion that not alone the more\nignoble forms of animalcular or animal life, not alone the nobler forms\nof the horse and lion, not alone the exquisite and wonderful mechanism\nof the human body, but that the human mind itself--emotion, intellect,\nwill, and all their phenomena--were once latent in a fiery cloud.\nSurely the mere statement of such a notion is more than a refutation.\"\nTyndall, _Fragments of Science_, p. 163.\n\n[172] Mr. Mill speaks thus of the Design argument. \"It is the best; and\nbesides, it is by far the most persuasive. It would be difficult to\nfind a stronger argument in favour of Theism, than that the eye must\nhave been made by one who sees, and the ear by one who hears.\" Mill _On\nHamilton_, p. 551.\n\n[173] So in Thomson's Hymn:--\n\n    \"Thy beauty walks, Thy tenderness and love.\n    Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm;\n    Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles;\n    And every sense, and every heart, is joy.\"\n\n\n[ai] \"The idea of God, beyond all question or comparison, is the one\ngreat seminal principle; inasmuch as it combines and comprehends all\nthe faculties of our nature, converging in it as their common centre;\nbrings the reason to sanction the aspirations of the imagination;\nimpregnates law with the vitality and attractiveness of the affections;\nand establishes the natural legitimate subordination of the body to\nthe will, and of both to the _vis logica_ or reason, by involving\nthe necessary and entire dependence of the created on the creator.\"\n_Guesses at Truth._ 1st Ed., pp. 122, 3.\n\n[aj] Perhaps every cynic delighting in those records should be asked to\ndefine what he means by Savagery. Of savages there are evidently many\nsorts, _e. g._:--\n\n(1) The children of our race;--a condition not beautiful, yet not\nwithout hope.\n\n(2) Semi-civilized tribes, generally addicted to \"fire-water\" and other\nvices of civilization, without possession of its better things.\n\n(3) Barbarian princedoms, grown decrepit by reason of wars, caste\ndomination, or a sensual and effete culture.\n\n(4) There are also a few wholly uncultured folk, who are more of\ngentlemen and ladies than our highly civilized peoples;--more truthful,\nhonourable, and courteous;--while,\n\n(5) Not a few are savages indeed!\n\nThese strictures serve as a reminder to add that by Theism is here\nintended the belief in a Supreme Being, the Father of Spirits, to Whom\nwe shall give solemn account. But it is _not_ meant to include some\ncivilized superstitions, by means of which many men degrade and torment\ntheir fellows. Of such men we say, They too are savages indeed!\n\n[174] _Reid's Works_, p. 751.\n\n[175] _Reid's Works_, p. 743.\n\n[176] _Metaph._ II. p. 530.\n\n[177] _The Friend_, vol iii. p. 214. Ed. 1844.\n\n[ak] The portrait of a lonely thinker searching out God has been\npainted in lively colours, as follows:--\"O my friend, you would do me\nmost grievous wrong, if you thought my heart empty of those feelings\nwhich make man the standing miracle of Nature. If your child fell into\nthe river, would you stop to tell or think how you loved it, how dear\nand winsome and precious it was to you, how blank your home and bruised\nyour heart would be without it? Or would you plunge into the stream in\nutter recklessness of your life, bear it swiftly out of the devouring\nflood, and then in silence strain the rescued little one to your bosom?\nCharacters differ. It is mine to act, as well as to feel. What, do you\nimagine, prompts a thinker to give his days and nights to the rescue of\nman's faith in God, his heart-trust and moral inspiration and spiritual\njoy, when all these are put in jeopardy by the increase of a knowledge\nthat is but half comprehended, even by those who in their own special\nlines are nobly increasing it? What lies back of the intense activity\nof his brain, as he toils over problems that wring the beads from his\nbrow, gives up to the lonely pursuit of truth the hours that might be\nfertile of the prizes clutched after by the crowd, and turns his back\non prizes that even he holds dear? What but a mighty hunger for God\ncan explain this weary, unending search for Him? What else can explain\nthe unthanked effort to make plain a path to Him that no man wants to\ntravel?\" American _Index_, Jan. 15, 1874.\n\n[178] Butler's Sermons, p. 184 seq.\n\n[179] _The Soul, her Sorrows and her Aspirations_, pp. 103, 104.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nPRODUCTION AND ITS LAW.\n\n\n \"[Greek: Polla ta deina, kouden anthr\u00f4pou deinoteron pelei.]\"\n\n  Sophocles, _Antigone_.\n\n \"These be the two parts of natural philosophy,--the inquisition of\n causes, and the production of effects; speculative, and operative;\n natural science, and natural prudence.\" Bacon's _Advancement of\n Learning_. Book II.\n\n \"The perception of real affinities between events (that is to say, of\n _ideal_ affinities, for those only are real), enables the poet to make\n free with the most imposing forms and phenomena of the world, and to\n assert the predominance of the soul.\n\n \"Whilst thus the poet animates nature with his own thoughts, he\n differs from the philosopher only herein, that the one proposes Beauty\n as his main end; the other Truth,\" Emerson. _Idealism._\n\n \"The question of questions for mankind--the problem which underlies\n all others, and is more deeply interesting than any other--is the\n ascertainment of the place which Man occupies in nature and of his\n relations to the universe of things. Whence our race has come; what\n are the limits of our power over nature, and of nature's power over\n us; to what goal we are tending; are the problems which present\n themselves anew and with undiminished interest to every man born into\n the world.\" Huxley. _Man's Place in Nature_, p. 57.\n\n \"Der Mensch ist das einzige Gesch\u00f6pf, das erzogen werden muss.\n Unter der Erziehung n\u00e4mlich verstehen wir die Wartung (Verpflegung,\n Unterhaltung), Disciplin (Zucht) und Unterweisung nebst der Bildung.\n Dem zufolge ist der Mensch S\u00e4ugling,--Z\u00f6gling--und Lehrling.\" Kant.\n _P\u00e4dagogik_, Einleitung.\n\n \"Man's Intellectual Progress consists in the Idealization of Facts,\n and man's Moral Progress consists in the Realization of Ideas.\"\n Whewell's _Moral Philosophy, Additional Lectures_, p. 129.\n\n \"Say! when the world was new and fresh from the hand of its Maker,\n Ere the first modelled frame thrilled with the tremors of life,...\n .... Forms of transcendent might--Beauty with Majesty joined, None to\n behold, and none to enjoy, and none to interpret? Say! was the WORK\n wrought out! Say was the GLORY complete? What could reflect, though\n dimly and faint, the INEFFABLE PURPOSE Which from chaotic powers,\n Order and Harmony drew? What but the reasoning spirit, the thought and\n the faith and the feeling? What, but the grateful sense, conscious of\n love and design? Man sprang forth at the final behest. His intelligent\n worship Filled up the void that was left. Nature at length had a Soul.\"\n\n    Sir J. Herschel. _Essays, etc._, p. 737.\n\n \"W\u00e4r ein verst\u00e4ndiger Sinn auch mir doch beschieden gewesen! Aber es\n t\u00e4uschte mich tr\u00fcgrischer Pfad, hieher mich, dann dorthin Lockend. Nun\n bin ich bejahrt und doch unbefriedigt von allem Forschen. Denn wo ich\n den Geist hinwende, da l\u00f6st sich mir alles Auf in Eins und Dasselbe:\n da alles Seyende, allzeit Allw\u00e4rts angezogen, in \u00e4hnliche, eine Natur\n tritt.\"\n\n    Jacobi. _Werke, Vorrede zu David Hume_, p. 103.\n\n \"Throughout all future time, as now, the human mind may occupy itself,\n not only with ascertained phenomena and their relations, but also\n with that unascertained something which phenomena and their relations\n imply. Hence if knowledge cannot monopolize consciousness--if it\n must always continue possible for the mind to dwell upon that which\n transcends knowledge; then there can never cease to be a place for\n something of the nature of Religion; since Religion under all its\n forms is distinguished from everything else in this, that its subject\n matter is that which passes the sphere of experience.\" Herbert\n Spencer. _First Principles_, p. 17.\n\n\nSYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER V.\n\n The argument of this chapter turns upon the analysis of concrete\n processes carried on throughout human life; together with their\n correlations or correspondent factors visible _in rerum natur\u00e2_.\n All these being complex activities, resolve themselves into series\n of simpler activities, which, though separable in thought, follow\n each other inseparably as real working elements of human or natural\n productions,--or of both.\n\n In each productive process of Mankind, we perceive:--\n\n 1. A purpose conceived,--(the end or final cause.)\n\n 2. A power or force which has to be (a.) discovered and (b.) fitted to\n this human purpose.\n\n 2. (a.) This implies that the object in quest exists, or is capable\n of being evoked into active existence, as a Force or operative Law\n capable of producing real effects. Otherwise, it would be no auxiliary\n to Man. Viewed _per se_, and apart from its being fitted to his\n special purpose, it must therefore be a _natural_ power or law, and\n answers to what Bacon calls a Form or Formal cause.[180]\n\n (It is plain that human production requires some particular\n utilization of a producing force, wider in itself than this or\n any other ancillary application of its energies. Compare Bacon's\n philosophic observation[181] that the operative Form \"deduces the\n given nature from some source of being which is inherent in more\n natures.\")\n\n 2. (b.) A number of such powers, forces, laws, forms, present\n themselves to the intellectual eye of an inventor or producer.\n Possible _fitness_, (adaptability)--must therefore next be\n determined. And here the power is no longer considered separately, but\n in relation to some Formation.\n\n In 2, therefore, we have (a) a simple fact or general law of\n Force;--and (b) a correlated fact, or specialized law of Production.\n\n 3. Finally, for operative activity, there must be an efficient cause\n putting in movement the productive law, over and above its intelligent\n apprehension just presupposed. This efficient Cause, as seen always in\n human Production, is a Will.\n\nNow each several step in this series comes before us as an act\nof _Mind_. But out of this number one only needs to be examined\nhere;--because\n\n Purpose (1) has been treated of in Chapter II.\n\n Will (3) occupies the close of this Essay.\n\n No. 2, therefore, (divisible into a and b,) makes the proper\n subject-matter of the present Chapter. It has been written to meet\n the difficulties felt by a certain number of reasoners respecting the\n argument from Design. They are very often indisposed to accept that\n argument, because its analogical nature makes it appear circuitous;\n and because they hesitate when attempting to appreciate its exact\n value: compare p. 53 _ante_. There is also a lurking dread of that\n spectral shadow called Anthropomorphism, haunting some minds with\n a pertinacity, which may be estimated from p. 54 _seq._ By such\n reasoners let the present Chapter,--which proceeds not by way of\n analogy, but through a direct analysis of acknowledged facts--be\n read as a substitute for Chapter II. Or, they may if they please,\n consider the present and two following Chapters as a Treatise entirely\n distinct from the rest of the volume; this present Chapter serving as\n a brief statement of the case for _physico-_theology; while the two\n arguments ensuing sketch out _Ethico-_ or _Moral_ Theology; on which\n complementary modes of thought see p. 107 _ante_, together with text\n and notes now about to follow. Finally, by all those who accept the\n reasoning from Design as already explained, let both it and our other\n various lines of argument be treated as separate evidences of Natural\n Theology, each resting on its own grounds, but all consilient at last.\n\n_Analysis._--Advance and Retrogression of Discovery and of\nCivilization. Progress dependent on realizing the relativity between\nPower and Function. This condition of success is examined at length.\n\nPerception of existing Relations, and creation of new ones by human\nReason and Will. Illustrations from histories of Invention, Art,\nEducation, and Self-Education.\n\nProduction of Change within ourselves. Self conquest, Self formation,\nand Re-formation. Inability of animals arises from domination of\nmotives unalterable by themselves and instinctively apprehended.\nTraining relative to motor instincts of various sorts. Self-training\nrequires freedom from the domination of any single unbalanced\nor unalterable impulse. It implies the power of using motives as\ncounterpoises, and of introducing new elements into the sphere of our\nideals.\n\nInfluence of human presence upon the education of animals; influence of\nthe Divine Idea upon Man.\n\nTransition from the sphere of Intellect to that of Will in relation\nto the World. The Spring of Production a movement of Will; the\nIdea of Production an insight into the Mind of Nature; discovered\nnot logically, but as shewn in operation in Nature. Law and Idea,\nIntelligence and Matter. Manifold Forces imply a central Unity. Putting\naside the analogical inference from apparent Purpose, the question of\noperative Law (Force, Form, Mind,) is examined in its many activities,\ntheir correlations and their underlying Oneness.\n\nNatural Law in action: hypothesis of limited intelligence. Case of\nUnreason, Creation by Chance.\n\nBreadth of Law seen in its general fitnesses, and grander unities.\nExceptional effects in \"Functioning.\"\n\nCharacter of Mind in Nature. Law, type, idea. Adaptation even if\npurposed is not Arbitrary. A Supreme Will must be a sovereign Reason.\n\nPerfection of Mind in Nature estimated from convergent fitnesses and\ncorrelations, as exemplified by Sight and Hearing. Also by their\neffects in producing Beauty, Happiness, and a sense of sympathy. Mind\nin Nature not bare intelligence, but possessing emotional attributes,\nnot harsh nor unlovely, but tender and loveable.\n\n\n_Additional Note._\n\n On the Doctrine of Chances applied to the structural Development of of\n the Eye, by Professor Pritchard.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nPRODUCTION AND ITS LAW.\n\n\n\"Life,\" said Dr. Johnson, \"has not many things better than this:\"--\"we\nwere,\" Boswell explains, \"driving rapidly along in a post-chaise.\" But\nwhat if the two men, congratulating themselves upon their speed, could\nhave read (with some approach to second-sight) Dr. Darwin's lines--\n\n    \"Soon shall thy arm, unconquer'd steam! afar\n    Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car.\n    Or on wide-waving wings expanded bear\n    The flying chariot through the fields of air.\"\n\nThe slow barge now traverses the wide Atlantic as fast as even\nfast-living America can desire. The rapid car whirls across England\nin a few brief hours. With what half-envious astonishment, might Dr.\nJohnson have computed the arrowy flight of these iron creations over\nland or water;--with what sententious wisdom might he not have dilated\non the uncontrolled dissemination, Sir, of books, knowledge, and\ncivility;--to say nothing of vile whiggism or possible rebellion!\n\nNo wide-waving wings have as yet wafted us over rivers and mountains.\nBut some inventors still cherish a hope of applying steam steerage, and\nperhaps steam propulsion, to very large balloons.\n\nIt is curious to think of the many centuries, during which men saw\nelastic vapour lifting their kettle lids, without catching the idea of\nsteam power, or reflecting on the movement it produced. Curious, too,\nto remember how slowly the idea grew, after the Marquis of Worcester\nhad explained the relation between the power and its movement-producing\nfunction. His \"fire-water-work\" (as he called it), \"drove up water by\nfire,\" at a rate of 1250 lbs. through one foot, to the consumption of 1\nlb. of coal. This is about 200 times the waste of a good modern engine.\nBut the _principle_ was there. Water flowed without intermission, at\na height of forty feet, driven only by the elastic force of steam.\nThe introduction of atmospheric pressure half obscured the original\nconception; steam-power seemed in danger of losing its proper\nfunctions. Passing by Papin and Savery,[182] the descent of Newcomen's\npiston depended on the production of a vacuum beneath it; at much cost\nof heat and labour, much waste of fuel and force. Strange, that for so\nmany years nobody thought of introducing steam-power above the piston,\nas well as below it.\n\nThe retrograde path which science sometimes treads, is also clearly\nshewn in the long-delayed invention of the paddlewheel steam-boat. The\nfirst patent was taken out by Jonathan Hulls in 1736, and his rare\npamphlet may be seen at the British Museum, or in Mr. Partington's\nreprint.[183] Strange, that so good a thing should have continued\nso long neglected;--up to the days of the first Napoleon, and,\n(fortunately perhaps for civilization,) under the Conqueror's imperial\nrule. The same fate, however, befel Trevithick's \"walking engine\" made\nin 1802. He applied high-pressure steam-power to a railway locomotive\nwhich really travelled (1805) at Merthyr Tydvil. Every one knows how\nslowly this invention has grown up into the useful goods-train or the\nluxurious roll of the express.\n\nThe relation between a power so well tested, and propulsion, was\nthus long in being fitted with perfect mechanism, and presented to\nthe eyes of mankind as a familiar every day phenomenon. But the idea\nof propelling carriages by other means than animal sinews, had been\nworking the reverse way; and a desirable end suggested a search for\nmeans. Men tried to fit other powers to the function; the problem\ngave rise to wind-driven chariots, and other curious contrivances for\ntravelling by land, which are graphically described by Lovell Edgeworth\nand several of his contemporaries. Then, too, came the desire to sail\nagainst the wind, and independently of water currents. A vignette in\nthe first Edition of _Bewick's Birds_ (vol. 1, p. 257), published in\n1797, shews us a ferry-boat crossing a river by means of a windmill\nwhich turns paddle wheels.[184] The engraver has marked by a ripple at\nthe vessel's bows the strength and swiftness with which she stems the\nstream.\n\nThe history of these machines carries with it a very useful moral. It\nfurnishes an apt similitude to the delays and retrogressions which are\nfound in the onward march of mankind, in the gains and triumphs of\ncivilization. These sometimes occur to nations through error, violence,\nand wrong. Compulsory celibacy, forced upon the most cultured men, was,\naccording to Mr. Darwin, one cause why Spain, notwithstanding her great\ngenerals, navigators, and inventors,[185] has been distanced by freer\nnations. Then, too, as he adds, \"the holy Inquisition selected with\nextreme care the freest and boldest men in order to burn or imprison\nthem.--In Spain alone, some of the best men ... were eliminated during\nthree centuries at the rate of a thousand a year.[186] The streams of\nboth invention and human improvement resemble, in this respect, the\ncurrent of a mighty river. We always encounter--and always ought to\nexpect--whirlpools, back-waters, and other sinuosities, as we descend\nthe flowing tide.\n\nVery frequently, civilization is retarded by another kind of\ndifficulty, also besetting the inventive arts. Like them, Progress\ndepends upon its capacity for happily realizing the relativity[al]\nbetween Power and Function. The philanthropist sometimes,--the\ncraftsman often,--has only to think of the function required, and to\ngrasp a relation pre-existing in the laws of the natural world,--fit\nit to its own purposes, and usefully employ the adaptation. This was\nthe case when elastic vapours of many kinds were examined relatively\nto their power of producing movement. Each deeper investigation brings\na clearer insight into a more deeply-hidden law. The apprehension of\n\"Heat as a mode of Motion,\"[am] is an instance in point.\n\nSometimes--in human affairs oftenest--the mind originates a new\nrelation between Power and Function, and launches it, like an\nunimagined locomotive, whirling and dashing onwards throughout the\nworld of men. The will of a powerful king or conqueror, statesman\nor missionary, evokes a new power; gives it life and motive energy,\nand sends it out to perform its intended function amongst millions\nof mankind, and for many generations. Hence, Kant said there were\ntwo things which filled him with awe: one, the starry heavens,\nthat mightiest example of mighty powers orderly performing their\nappropriate functions; the other, Man's Will, a power less mighty in\none sense, but belonging to a sphere where mass and measurement are\nnot, and performing functions signalized too frequently by wrongful\ndetermination. Functions which, whether rightly or wrongly performed,\ninvolve a mightier _Something_ than all the inorganic worlds ever\ndisplayed, a _Something_ we define by that deepest of ideas and most\nawful of truths,--Responsibility.\n\nThe whole subject admits of extensive illustration. The relativities\nof Power and Function are infinitely varied in Nature, Art, and\nThought; in the unity of the whole world, and in the disunited world\nof Humanity. But, however varied in their sphere of operation, all\nrelations between Power and Function coincide in one characteristic.\nThey appeal to mind alone, and by mind alone can be apprehended so\nas to become operative. Those that belong to the _human_ sphere of\nactivity are in part the _perceptions_ of Mind; in part they are\nevidenced to our consciousness as its own _creations_.\n\nIf we look at the inorganic world, Man apprehends such a relativity\nas that between steam-power and propulsion, and applies it. In the\nrealm of pure mathematics, there are powers of another sort, which\n(when applied) require allowances to be made in \"_functioning_\"\nthem. Provided metal, timber, friction, and cross-circumstances have\ntheir proper margin given, those abstract entities,[187] absolute in\ntruth, become realized in practice. When we come to organization,\nparticularly higher organisms, the functions of the biological kingdom\nare more complex. Yet the trainer of animals knows how to combine\nand modify old powers so as to produce new ones. The pointer, the\ngreyhound, the racehorse, and the hunter are all examples. Then, too,\nmen manipulate men. See how the face of all Europe is covered with\ntraining establishments of every description.[an] Youths are fitted\nfor army, navy, bar, parliament, politics. The powers of attention,\nmemory, habit, are all pressed into service, just as the inventor\nof locomotives calculates the strength and tenacity of iron, brass,\ncopper, and other materials, fits each pipe, crank, and wheel, to\nits intended function, and ends by speeding his fellows past the\ndoors of their fellow-men. Now, the manipulation of these materials\nis a calculable process, and succeeds at last. But there is one\ndisappointment often awaiting the manipulator of mankind. His failure\narises from the fact that the moral purpose, which he must take for\ngranted, is very commonly wanting among those he undertakes to educate.\n\nAnother inventor of the highest sort, an artist, conceives a majestic\nthought. It becomes to him the work of his life, the function he\nardently desires to realize. To the true Art-man, his conception is\na noble ideal, and some instinct, or proclivity of his own nature,\nteaches him how to adapt it to the ears and eyes, the intellect and\nfeelings of his race. There are sounds which die in their newborn\nsensations of delight, yet haunt the memory while consciousness\nremains. There are colours appealing to one single organ of perception,\nand, through it, penetrating the soul with images that rise again and\nagain in nightly and daily dreams. And there are words, the forms and\ncreations of our distinctive human mind, through which it exercises its\nsublimest powers, and which are (in themselves) among the most sublime.\n_They_ have their proper functions. Age after age, from country to\ncountry, from nation to nation,[188] they have moved the souls of\nreaders to emotion, reasoning, will, activity. Noble words, expressing\nideas unknown to all intelligences below man, and called into existence\nby him, prolong their own lives by extending his intellectual and\naffective life. They burn like incense within the temple of his spirit,\nbut, unlike incense, survive undyingly in the immortal flame which\nkindles them.\n\nThere is a still loftier and more solemn function we all exercise--or\nought to exercise--in or upon the sphere of our own souls. To us is\ncommitted the task, our human task,--morally imperative on no sentient\nbeings inferior to ourselves,--of transforming and reforming, that is\n(to all intents and purposes) _truly forming_ our own inward nature. We\nhave not, at present, to consider how near heaven may and does draw to\nearth, in this highest of works known to us who dwell beneath the sky.\nBut the absolutely human part of it belongs to this place.\n\nEvery one has learned how hard it is to break through even one bad\nhabit. The evil has in most cases enchained body as well as mind. A\ndrunkard's hand is naturally reached out to lift the cups it has been\nused to lift. His thirst, too, recurs at the accustomed hour;--and\nthe readers of \"Elia\" know something of what happens when it is left\nunslaked. A tingling and straining of the palate is associated with the\nsight of the eye; the drunkard's throat burns when he sees the draught\nbefore him; his frustrated desire is followed by the most frightful\nsufferings throughout his disorganized nervous system. The same is true\nof other like habituations; as may be read in De Quincey's Opium Eater,\nand in the last book of Charles Dickens, left behind him an unfinished\nfragment. It is true, also, of countless smaller customs which prevent\nmany a man from achieving what Hooker calls \"great masteries.\" Every\nmuscle, fibre, and organ of our frame, performs easily the functions\nit has been used to perform, but undergoes a strain if put out of its\nusual course.\n\nThe mind (as well as the body), has its laws of habit and association.\nWe perceive this fact most readily in the less perfect intelligence\nof the animal kingdom, of untutored man, and of people who are more\ninured to action than to reflection. The more rudimentary the mind,\nthe more real is its state of subservience to association and habit,\nwhich may then be properly termed its governing laws. But it would be\nimproper to apply this word \"governing\" to the same laws in connection\nwith higher natures. In a man whose reason and will have attained their\nmanly majority, such laws have ceased to be governors;--their province\nis simply administrative. Deposed from their rule over his existence,\nthey become his ministers, servants, instruments. There is, thus, a\ncompensatory constitution of human nature, whereby the light within us,\nwhich lighteth every man, may be said to make us free.[189] It exempts\nus, that is, from the sway of customary laws which guide and reduce to\nsubjection the merely animal intelligence.\n\nA habit broken is a customary law broken. And any one who breaks\nthrough a customary law already inwoven with the fibres of his own\nlife, is a man _par excellence_. And the deeper that inweaving,--the\ngreater the laceration of living fibres,--if he rends them in\nobedience to duty, and because to do otherwise would be to do wrong,\nthe more truly and emphatically he is a _Man_. Again, if we proceed\nto ask by what means he breaks the bonds of custom, the Manhood of\nhis act appears still more distinctly. His purpose may be, and often\nis, accomplished by setting a higher law of his being over against\na lower;--putting a more really human power in movement to tame and\nquell some animal propensity. But then, what is that secret strength\nwhich apprehends and evokes the higher law? What is the central spring\nthat moves the strictly human power, and converts it from a sleeping\ncapacity for good, into an acting and living energy? Clearly, it is\nthe Man's truest humanity;--the endowment which makes him Man.\n\nThere are lives of men plainly told, and undoubted, where\n_re_-formation,--that is _self_-formation,--appears like a flash of\nelectric fire. The Will in such men has energized, just as intellect\nflashes out in its noblest condition of genius; and can best be\ndescribed by the poet or the seer who knows what it is to create, and\nnew create. These lives more than realize C\u00e6sar's boast;--the truly\nhuman soul came to itself,--saw itself,--and overcame. The conqueror\ndid a deed which, (truly done,) was done for ever, and yielded him the\npresage of perpetual peace.\n\nHistories of self-conquest do, however, remarkably differ in respect\nof the _time_ employed upon the work. Some victories are, as we have\nsaid, rapid and brilliant as the march of Alexander,--others slow\nand embarrassed, like the weary path of a pilgrim through deserts of\nrolling sand. But no pilgrim who is in earnest need despair. Putting\naside all consideration of supernatural aid, he may take courage from\nthe essential greatness of his own human being, when contrasted with\nthe being of all creatures below mankind.\n\nThe _comparison_ sets out from this question:--What can merely animal\nnature do to raise itself? Man, we know, can train certain brutes--he\ncan entrap all;--but no brute can in any wise deliver himself from the\nsnare of a single appetite. The weakness, as well as the strength, of\nanimal intelligence lies in the vividness of its instincts. Animals\nappear conscious of the working of powers within themselves; and they\napprehend those functions, with the performances of which their powers\nare correlated. Hence, in part at least, the pleasure of a bird in\nnest-building; a bee in storing her comb, or a predacious creature in\nits successful pursuit of prey. But the relation between animal power\nand function appears so nearly fixed, as to be hedged round by narrow\nlimits; and only in a _very_ small degree susceptible of modification.\nSo far as we can discover, the brute is deficient in the means of\nself-education, for _three_ distinct reasons. _One_, because he cannot\nescape fulfilling the normal functions of his unreasoning impulse. In\nthe _second_ place, because he is unable to overcome the urgency of\none innate power, by opposing to it the claims and vigour of another.\n_Thirdly_, he can never introduce anything new into the relativity\nbetween power and function. He can command no spring of high aim or\ncreative thought, which might give new purpose to his better powers,\nor open out some further sphere of activity before unknown.--Were this\npossible, he might lift the functions of his common life above their\nold destinies, and above themselves.--And _this_ would be a work of\nself-education.\n\nTo pursue our comparison,--we must remember that the ability for\nself-education and the capacity for being educated, are correlatives;\nand we may measure the one by the other. The animal world has never\nshewn strength enough to raise itself very high;--it has never ceased\nto be distinctly animal. But, has it ever possessed latent powers\nfor which opportunity was always wanting? Mankind, for their own\npurposes, have (we know) continually been testing[ao] the endowments\nof inferior creatures. How high, then, can man by his endeavours\nraise the animal race?--He can generally train them to a greater\nquickness in the exercise and nicety of their own instinctive powers,\nand a more enduring performance of their instinctively presented\nfunctions. By reward and punishment, he can inure them to some degree\nof self-restraint; and he takes advantage of a thousand pretty impulses\nand fondnesses of animal nature, to call into being attachment,--nay,\noften passionate devotion,--towards himself. In this sense, Man has\nbeen styled the God of his domestic brute--his horse, his dog, his\nelephant. It would be a curious subject of reflection, to inquire what\neffect might possibly be produced upon the _human_ mind by the visible\npresence, and incessant influence, of beings, as much higher than\nmen, as men are higher than brutes? The moment we start this idea in\nour minds, it is difficult to evade an impression that Man must be a\ndesolate creature, if he can never in some way see the Invisible.[ap]\n\nTo leave this curious point. Nothing appears more really conclusive\nagainst all supposed capacity for _great_ development, than the\nhistory of what are called \"learned animals\";--of the mechanical means\nnecessarily employed for teaching them, and the mechanical results\nobtained. There is indeed no better word to describe the true state of\nthe case; than the term \"mechanical,\" as opposed to everything that\nis ideal, or truly creative.[aq] If a brute could idealize the laws\nof outward nature,--or the laws connecting his own powers with their\nproper functions, he might see them as a Man does, and give them a\nfresh existence within his own intelligence. He would then be able to\ninvent an alphabet, conceive a picture, and view the properties of\noutward objects as universals inwardly apprehended. In this way, he\nwould acquire exemption from the reign of mechanism, and live a really\ncreative life. Possible conceptions--ideal functions--would require\nnew powers to realize them;--and these powers would be searched for\nand found. Or, _vice vers\u00e2_, an idealized power,--a power seen, (not\nas it is, but as it may be)--would lead to the discovery of fresh\nfunctions,--new fields of enterprise,--new realms of imagination.\n\nIt is manifest at a glance, how far in fact these conquests are from\nthe world of creatures, by us, therefore, called unreasoning. Art,\nletters, and abstract thought, are no visitants of the animal sphere.\nWords cannot come where thoughts are not; and therefore language, in\nthe _human_ meaning of language, is unknown to brutes.[190] And no\neffort made by Man has ever been successful in sharing with his humble\ncompanions any one--(much less all) of these attainments. His artistic\nsense of Beauty, and power of giving it varied expression, find no\nEcho beneath himself; he can in no wise teach by historical record,\npoetry, abstract calculation, or abstract thought. Neither can he\nimpart the true secret of social sympathy,--and forbid the stricken\ndeer to weep and die alone. Intelligence without imagination, cannot\nconceive a sorrow so lonely or unseen. Therefore, it knows little of\ndeep sorrow,--for even the mortally-wounded bird will strive to hide\nits wound.[191]\n\nNow, in each and all of these respects, every human being devoted to\nself-education starts from the plain fact, that Man is _educable_:--\n\n    \"Parents first season us,--then schoolmasters.\"\n\nThe master of many a middle-school has frequent occasion to say with\nHorace;\n\n                    ----\"At ingenium ingens\n    Inculto latet hoc sub corpore.\"--\n\nAnd the schoolmaster, also, knows that a little spark will often light\ninto fire some vast store of emotional as well as intellectual elements\nlying asleep within.[192]\n\nWe therefore speak (if we speak correctly), of educating an animal in a\ntotally different sense from educating a boy. For, facts are as we have\nstated them, whatever theories may be.\n\nThere is _one_ more point of contrast to stimulate and encourage\nthe self-educating portion of Mankind; and this point is the most\ncharacteristic endowment essential to Humanity. A man is not creative\nby virtue of his ideals alone, however bright and beautiful those\nvisions of his intellect may be. He calls into existence that, which as\nyet is not, by virtue of his Will. We know this, although inexplicable,\nto be true;--partly from the evidence of our own Consciousness,--which\nasserts that it is so, and partly from the evidence of Morality,--which\nsays that it must necessarily be so. Were it otherwise, no amount\nof Criminality could make a Criminal responsible. And this truth of\nresponsibility is one which may occasion serious reflection to us all;\nto some of us sad remembrances.\n\nMan, considered as causal or creative mind, cannot but act upon the\nworld without, as well as the world within himself. And perhaps the\nnearest idea we are able to form of the process of _production_, is\nthe _inter_-action of power and function, evoked by a Will, (that\nis a Cause); and continuing operative by aid of ordinary laws and\nrelativities of nature.[ar] One man resolves to construct a steam\nengine, and on steam-power he concentrates his thought. He conceives\nthe relation between watery vapour and propulsion;--and by using\narbitrary signs, formulates and measures it. Then, he considers the\nlaws and properties of metals, fits each contrivance into place and\nproduces his machine. _Another_ determines to commit a murder. He\nwavers--debates--wills the deed, and says,--\n\n                \"I am settled, and bend up\n    Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.\"\n\nEvery reader of Macbeth sees displayed before his eyes the airy dagger;\nthe human muscle strained to clutch the shadow first,--afterwards,\nthe reality;--the time, place, circumstances, all combined, followed\nup--worked out, till the murderous man has chained all conditions of\nsuccess to his behest;--fulfilled his slowly-matured purpose,--and\nbecome, as in Will, so in act, a murderer. A _third_ human being\nendeavours to invent a method for teaching the deaf and dumb;--spends\na life in labouring among his silent tomb-like pupils, and succeeds to\nhis joy and their inestimable benefit at last. He awakens powers lost\nin the shadow of death, and incites them to the performance of those\ntrue and appropriate functions, from which they had been incapacitated\nby a dwarfed and thwarted development. Before he aroused them, all\nsuch powers were only possibilities, visible to his hopeful eye. Now,\nthey are utilized and happy activities; and, like impulses down a\nlong electric chain, perpetuate themselves for generations after the\nbenevolent inventor is taken from the race he had loved and educated.\n\nThere are _two_ features in which all these productive men resemble\neach other. _One_, the creative influence of a purely human will,\nwhich not only sees what is not as though it is,--but also determines\nthat it shall be. The _other_, a way of looking at, or rather, through\nNature, as something more than an assemblage of facts or phenomena;--of\npenetrating to the _mind_ of Nature,--her ideal laws legible by the\nintellectual eye of Man;--and finally, of putting each required law\ninto motion,--that is to say, converting an idea into a force, by the\nmovement of the producer's Will.\n\nAnd the same is true of every useful producer, from the man who grows\ncorn and wine, to the politician by whose foresight is arranged a\ntreaty which gives Europe the blessing of half a century's peace. There\nis, probably, no example of production more definite than the work of a\nreal statesman. A gifted human mind determines to pursue the thing that\nis just and right and good; sees where the means to be utilized may be\nfound and enforced; touches the right spring of activity and power, and\nleads his fellow-men into a path of precedent or constitution for which\nages may consecrate his memory.--But, let us suppose that he or any\nother true producer falls short of realizing his idea. Then, the act of\nWill would be in its _essence_ as noble a reality as the deed itself.\nYet the work intended,--the _production_ must needs be lost. Creative\nwill, as an efficient cause, would have moved within the moral sphere;\nbut beyond, and into the outside world of men and things, its activity\nmust have failed to penetrate.\n\nWhen the case comes before us in this manner and is fairly weighed, we\nsee that the man who wills a good choice, reflects to his fellows the\nimage we are accustomed to call Divine. And that the man who produces\na good act reflects to his fellows the further likeness and idea of\na Creator. The will of man reflects a supreme will, when it refuses\nthe evil and chooses the good;--the creative energy of man reflects a\nsupreme energy, when it produces actual good; working and remaining\neffectual in the world. These human reflections may be feeble shadows,\nand far away from the Supreme;--as distant as earth and stars asunder,\nbut they are typical images nevertheless. Man, in whom the Theist\nfinds the impress of God, is by his power of Causality, as far raised\nbeyond the laws of material existence, as animal life and movement are\nsuperior to the clods of soil on which the living creature walks, with\na consciousness of being exalted above what he treads upon.\n\nIf these far away reflections, so striking to a Theist, are, by an\nunbeliever, pronounced insufficient proofs of Theism,--they remain\nstill of very great value to the argument--Who shall, in the teeth of\nthem, assert a reign of law in opposition to a reign of Causation,\nwhen we perceive that Causality is the grand endowment underlying\nthe highest intelligence in this world, and distinguishing man from\nevery inferior creature? A large class of objections dies in the\nfact that there is _known_ to us a power which can truly _originate_\nactions;--a clear spring of volitional creativeness. And, as we have\nalready seen, it is this human power which endows us with the faculty\nof self-education, and, at the same time, lays upon us the burden\nof responsibility. It exempts Man from what would otherwise be an\niron chain of antecedents and consequents, linked together by mere\nmechanical laws. Man, we are sure, may interpolate in this chain; he\nmay commence a new series within and over-riding it. The non-Theist\nwould (if consistent), describe such an act of will as a miracle.\nNevertheless, it is true to every-day life, and each guilty person,\njustly condemned, is a living example of this truth.\n\nAny reader who has been deterred from admitting the arguments for\nTheism by the strength of objections apparently unanswerable, may\nfeel, if he will thoughtfully reperuse this chapter, that many very\nformidable difficulties have melted away. He may also be inclined to\nadmit that, if _facts_ are to be considered the best grounds for\nreasoning with probability from the known to the unknown, the facts\nof nature, (including human nature,) make not against, but for,\nthe conclusions of Natural Theology. And they do so all the more\nstringently, because they coincide with the higher and more spiritual\ntendencies of Man's being,--with the beliefs and aspirations of the\nmost nobly endowed among his race.\n\nMany readers will go further than this. They will perceive in the\nconstitution of our distinctive nature, and more particularly in the\nmovement of Volition, a really probable though far away similitude with\nthe producing Cause of all things. At all events they will say that\nno other similitude or illustration has ever been conceived with so\nmuch probability. To such minds the argument would appear sufficiently\nconvincing if shaped as a very wide application of the analogous\nreasoning stated in our Chapter on Design. The limitations there laid\ndown should in this case be carefully observed; above all as regards\nthe _pivot_ on which such an argument must turn.\n\nA larger class of readers may prefer to leave the field of this\ninviting analogy untouched; and remain content with having noted its\nresources in passing. They will thus prefer to pursue the more direct\nline of thought already adopted, especially since it has the merit of\navoiding even the most shadowy apparent assumption of the principle\ninvidiously termed Anthropomorphism. We therefore continue to place\nMan's causative nature side by side with external Force, and to set\nthe powers he exercises as an inventor, artist, and producer, over\nagainst those natural powers we see elicited and brought to light by\nhis activities. This is the aspect of the world to which the Relativity\nbetween Power and Function most obviously conducts us. Surveyed from\nthis aspect it becomes plain that Nature is not entirely a soulless\nmechanism;--but that the Mind of Man finds something which corresponds\nto his human Thought, and which answers the touch of his idealizing\nimpulse by implicitly obeying it. He is able, in this manner, to\ndistinguish Nature's Mind from Nature's raw material.\n\nMost of us are so accustomed to look at the world _ab extr\u00e2_, and\nplace ourselves in antithetical opposition to it, that we experience\na kind of embarrassment in changing our point of view, and considering\nhow much Nature and human nature correspond and harmonize together.\nThere is something strange to many persons, in the thought that _law_\nis an _idea_ put into operation;[as] that, when we speak of the\ndynamic agencies and living forces of nature, the dynamism is derived\nfrom _intelligence_; the life springs from mind. This is one of the\npuzzles and perplexities which hang a veil between God, who is pure\nReason, and this outside world. No doubt there is much that appears\ndark and enigmatic in every attempted explanation of the subject.\nYet it is clear that, whatever our conception of matter and mind may\nbe, one of these two must be resolvably consequent upon the other;\nand the efforts of physicists have been strained for many years to\ndiminish the distance between them. With these efforts, however, we\nhave nothing to do beyond very distinctly adducing them[at] in order\nto shew where this particular difficulty really lies, and that it is\nby no means a special question of Natural Theology. The point for\nus, is rather to see how much we can discern respecting the action\nof Mind _in_ and _upon_ Nature. To see, that is, how many facts the\nrealities of Production teach us. And throughout the whole realm of\nProductiveness (commencing from the steam-engine and ending with human\nself-formation), there is a certain sameness of procedure and of\nprinciple transparently discernible. And this truth, fairly examined,\nyields more than one kind of argument for Theism.\n\nAt the first blush of the subject, it is evident that the\n\nscientific producer when he _begins_ to move, starts from the Causal\npower of mind. He moves _through_ ideas or impulses of which he is\ninternally conscious, and which present to him a chosen aim to be\nrealized, a goal to be attained. It is equally evident that, when his\naim is to make or effect something external to himself, he _next_\nproceeds to discover or accept one or more principles, existing _for\nMind alone_,[193] but operative in Nature. Such principles yield to his\nreason the requisite proportionate relation of _Power_ employed, to\n_Function_ designed. Upon this intelligent perception of intelligible\nlaws, he acts;--it works well, and succeeds;--and from this experience\nof working and success, he finds for his productive _intelligence_ a\ndaily and hourly _verification_.\n\nIt is well to place this subject in various lights before reasoning\nupon it. We may illustrate the relativities or laws, through which\nIntelligence acts, by saying that they are to the fabric of the\nworld, what the motory nervous system is to a highly-developed living\norganism. And, putting aside for a moment the intellectual agency of\nman, and applying our similitude to illustrate natural production\nalone, we may say that, just as the _mandatory nerves_ imply some\n_volitional_ centre, so these _intelligent laws_ presuppose a _mind in\nNature_. And we may not only make this clearer, but also evidence it\nmore certainly, by pointing to the fact that amidst Nature's almost\ninfinite manifoldness, we see everywhere harmony, symmetry, order.\nForces, like lines of light, traverse the world, illuminating, (so to\nspeak), the moving scenes of its magnificent transparency. And the one\nelectric lamp that sends forth those illuminating rays, typifies the\nUnity from which emanate all cosmical Forces, and which shines visibly\nthrough them all.[au]\n\nThere is nothing imaginative or metaphysical involved in this\nstatement. It amounts to no more than what many very eminent physicists\nlay down, as implicitly contained in their sciences. On _this very_\nground, Professor Baden Powell holds the validity of the argument\nfrom Design, as was mentioned in a former chapter. He puts the case\ninto a few words thus:--\"In the present state of knowledge, law and\norder, physical causation and uniformity of action, are the elevated\nmanifestations of Divinity, creation and providence.\"[194] A few\npassages further on, he repudiates with scorn the vulgar supposition\nthat physical science can be confined to the circle of outward\nexperience alone;[195] it includes within itself the principle of\ndirecting intelligence. According to Comte himself, \"un fait s'explique\npar un fait d'un ordre sup\u00e9rieur, dont la perfection est sa raison,\ndont l'action qu'elle renferme est sa cause.\"[196]\n\nIt does indeed seem as impossible to deny the existence and operation\nof _Mind_ in Nature, as it is to deny the existence and consciousness\nof our own minds. No tenable reason can ever be assigned why, when\nwe look forth into the world surrounding us, we should be able to\nascertain the fact of corporeal existence by means of our bodily\nsenses, and be, at the same time, unable to ascertain the fact of\nexisting intelligence by means of our mental intuitions. Each kind\nof existence has its appropriate evidence, and _both_ sorts of\nevidence claim our belief by appealing to the veracity of our human\nconsciousness.\n\nIf, therefore, it were possible to say with certitude \"There is no\nGod,\" the certainty would not, because it _could_ not, eliminate\nMind from the Universe. The law of production exists in, and for the\nMind,--and so far as we can know, Mind in some shape or other works\nthrough the intelligible law.[av] Suppose we frame a crucial case for\ninvestigation.\n\nWithout speculating upon the first origin of things natural--without\ntaking into the inquiry any preconception of a Divine personality--let\nus inquire what the world of Nature as it now exists can teach any\nman respecting the _kind_, _degree_, or _condition_ of Mind, which\nregulates and moulds it? We are obliged to say \"moulds it\";--for Nature\nis not presented to us as an inert mass. We see movement, change, and\nactivity everywhere. And this fact makes a vast difference to the\npresent question.\n\nLet us, then, suppose the inquirer setting out from an attempt to\nconceive mind as immersed in matter; either being _identical_ with\nit,[aw] or _pervading_ it, like a subtle fluid, or imponderable force.\nLet some such conception be supposed his starting point. What sort of a\nPower must he finally determine this mind to be?\n\nCould he possibly commence with a mundane intelligence inferior to\nthe mind of Man?--The bee can build a cell, the beaver a dam--but\nthe bee cannot construct a dam, nor the beaver a cell. The same is\ntrue universally. Animal intelligence acts in single right lines. We\nshould, therefore, be obliged to conceive as _many minds_ immanent in\nnature, or as many modifications of mind, as there are varieties of\nproduction. And if this were true, what would become of the order and\nharmony of the Universe? We call it by that name, because we know that,\n(notwithstanding its marvellous diversity and manifoldness,) it forms\na grand united whole. It would become necessary, _next_, to admit\na governing intelligence, able to control the countless species of\nintelligent power employed in producing all sorts of effects. And it\nreally seems easier, at once to conceive a supreme Mind, framing its\nideas into intelligible laws, and launching the forces of the Universe\nin moving might along them.\n\nThere are many obvious reasons why, after all, this would be the\neasiest,[197] and _therefore_ the preferable, conception. _One_ lies in\nthe immeasurable width and extent of that relativity between power and\nfunction, which we have seen to underlie every known production,--and\nconceivable _possibility_ of ruling or moulding Nature. Now, under\n_power_ we class forces such as those which hold corpuscles in\ncohesion, balance the orbs of heaven, or control the growth of a\ncrystal. Such as those, again, which make Life the counterbalance\nof dissolution and decay; and enable the animal frame to resist\ndecomposing influences; to feed, to grow, to energize, and move freely\non earth, in water, or in air. Such as those, finally, which yield us\nthe _pabulum_ of sensation, thought, emotion; and subserve our efforts\nto attain whatever is highest or noblest in our human world.\n\nWe know what sorts of intelligence are required to apprehend, and to\ndo no more than apprehend, the rationale of many among these natural\nmovements, forces, and processes. Some of them can be explained only\nby a very great mathematician, other some by an equally great chemist,\nbiologist, or psychologist. And in some, Man of the 19th century is\nas much a _tyro_ and disciple,--as ignorant and as tentative--as his\nforefathers were two thousand years ago. What a complexity of Minds, or\nwhat a majestic supremacy of one Mind becomes thus discernible by the\neye of Reason! Of Reason we say, meaning thereby the reason of a human\nbeing who looks facts in the face, puts them together and draws the\ninevitable conclusion. Were this drawn, it would amount to something\nvery like a re-affirmation of Theism. At present, however, we will\nnot press these topics further; since our object is to put an opposite\nconception on its complete trial, so as to see what is eventually\nimplied in it.\n\nSuppose, for instance, a merely sensitive intelligence to represent\nthe character of mind administering the Universe. Conceive, if you\nchoose, the world to be like an animal as some old philosophies\nconceived it. The way in which a _human_ being sees Power and Function\nis altogether different from the way in which they would be viewed\nby the supposed mundane intelligence. _We_ do not see them as two\nentities _separately_ existing, and the relation which is of such\nvital consequence to all inventors and producers, as _something_ which\nensues between them. To us, the causal essence of the Power lies in the\n_relativity_ itself, and we often actually recognize the Power passing\nover into its Function, and becoming lost in it. An example in point,\nlies in the active combination of uncombined atoms and molecules;--the\n_relativity_ (or, as in such a case it is termed, the _attraction_) is\nthe immediate cause of the production. \"Thus\" says Dr. Tyndall[198] \"we\ncan get power out of oxygen and hydrogen by the act of their union,\nbut once they are combined, and once the motion consequent on their\ncombination has been expended, no further power can be got out of the\nmutual attraction of oxygen and hydrogen. As dynamic agents they are\ndead.\" We can, in this manner, produce from the combustion of coal,\nlight, heat, and propulsive force; but coal and oxygen are _consumed_\nin the producing process. Yet in this process, _what and how much_\nwould have come within the grasp of a merely sensitive intelligence?\nSimply the object coal,--the brilliant light,--the pleasant heat,--and\nthe actual movement of an incomprehensible machine. Let Mundane Mind\nbe thus conceived and Nature would necessarily be administered by an\nintelligence which never got below the surface. The result, as we may\ncertainly perceive, must have always lain between either an unchanging\nsameness, or the instability of chance misdirection. A state of things\nwhich compared with our actual world would seem most unsatisfactory;\nbut which never has in fact been realized, for a reason at once\napparent to the reader's sagacity.\n\nTake another instance of change. The chemical elements of a Galvanic\nbattery disappear in performing their function of causing a current,\nand the current may in turn disappear in the decomposition of water.\nBut what merely sensitive intelligence could discern the invisible\nagency,--or measure the conversion of force, where nothing is\nvisible except loss? Besides, in this latter example do we not see\nhow truly correlative these two terms Power and Function are? We\nmay intelligently think and speak of the chemical constituents of\nthe battery, as conjoint _Power_;--and of their accomplishing their\n_Function_ in the Current. But we may also speak of the _current_\nas a Power, accomplishing _its_ Function by evolving from water two\nelementary gases. In other words, the ideas of Power and Function,\ndefinite enough to the eye of reason, are in all other respects,\n_fluent_. They are neither things, nor phenomenal attributes of things.\nThey _are_ power and function by virtue of a relation existing between\nthem, and this relation is a fact not of the bare impressible sense,\nbut of our purely reasoning intellect.\n\nThe same consequence appears, (in a shape which to some minds may be\neasier,) from viewing in another light the very same example of a\ngalvanic battery, applied to decompose water. At each end of the chain\nthere are palpable materials, visible to corporeal sense. But, between\nthem runs the true force;--and this is absolutely impalpable. We\ntheorize upon this force, but, whatever our theories may be, we accept\nits reality as a fact clear to our human _mind_. And we also clearly\nsee that no lower mind could possibly apprehend it.\n\nAnd here arises a curious question well worth a brief consideration.\nIt is this:--To any kind of mind, the faculties of which are bound\nup in sense, _what_ would appear to be the realities, and _what_ the\nunrealities of the Universe? Galvanic wires or chains are perceptible\nto our bodily senses, but the traversing force is imperceptible. Hence,\nin our common speech, we are easily led to talk of the polar elements\nor objects (whatever they are) as realities _par excellence_;--but\nwithout in the least meaning to imply that the _nexus_ or relativity\nbetween them is any less real; or less a fact. What we do mean, is,\nthat this reality is a fact to another, and a finer, faculty. But what\nwould it be if the finer faculty were wanting?--Reality would in that\ncase become phenomenal;--and phenomena (according to Dr. Whewell and\nother inductive philosophers), would at the same time cease to be facts.\n\nSo far, therefore, as we know,--and we still limit this discussion to\nwhat we really do know,--were Reason wanting, all the nobler part of\nthe Universe--its highest realities,--as understood by us, could not\nbe held real. They would fade like an insubstantial pageant--or the\nbaseless fabric of a dream. For, be it repeated,--_we_ do not see as\na merely sensitive mind must see. Principles and laws, sustaining and\nadministering the universal mechanism, are the visible realities of\nintellect; and are visible to intellect alone. Thus, no one ever saw\nthe principle of the arch except by an act of intellectual sight, and\nyet in the strength of it all arches stand firm. So, too, an architect\nknows that the stability and beauty of his structure depend on much\nthat is hidden from the uninstructed human eye. What meaner eye, then,\ncould ever succeed in piercing the secret architecture of the Universe?\nTo the mundane mind, if less than human, the most real would become\nunreal,--and the shadow appear to be the substance. No supposition\ncan possibly seem more absurd! Yet, when people speak of a \"blind\nintelligence\" in Nature, they must mean something less than Reason by\nthat strange contradictory appellation.\n\nThe case for Unreason can never be improved by saying that 'The world,\nas it exists, is a system of accordant forces; tending to fulfil\ntheir functions through a kind of self-evolving movement, excited and\ncontrolled by correlation and correspondence, action and interaction.\nThe products prevail, where they do prevail, through the completeness\nof their harmony with their surroundings. By virtue of this acquired\nexcellence which becomes intrinsic, each finally develops itself\ninto a permanent and integrated unit.' Here, obviously, the question\nof Intelligence recurs. If Mind were a necessary postulate before,\nhow much more stringent the necessity now! From hosts of uncounted\nrelativities we infer an Absolute;--surveying their rhythmical stir\nand onward strivings what shall we predicate respecting it? The\nworld might have been a discord;--Whence came its first symphonious\nmovement?--its after-waves of sphere-music majestically sweet to\nunderstanding ears;--its deeper and still deeper accordances;--\n\n    \"The Diapason ending full in Man,\"\n\nthat is to say, thus ending so far as the solemn march has been played\nout! What shall be hereafter, we know not now. But most marvellous of\nall as yet, is that first chord which struck the key-note of the whole\nharmonious performance.[199]\n\nIt is evident that the answers to these inquiries, must have the effect\nof infinitely elevating our own idea of the intelligence discoverable\nin natural productions;--because they will add to our perception of its\nwonderful insight, a still more wonderful impression of _fore_sight,--a\nforesight extending over illimitable periods of time; and causing\neffects, for the calculation of which no power of intellect actually\nknown to us, would have any adequate sufficiency.\n\nThe only apparent evasion of this consequence, is to deny arrangement\naltogether. But, then, how great are the resulting difficulties! In\nthe _first_ place, it would seem at once to restore covertly, if not\nopenly, that very ancient Divine principle, Chance; whose banishment\nhas long been agreed upon by reflective men. In the _next_ place, it\nis not clear how, looking at the scientific doctrine of Chances,[ax]\nthey would, when calculated, yield any probability whatever of\nproduction;--or even (what appears a less thing), of development from a\nrudimentary or less perfect structure already existing. The consequence\nis, that one or more principles besides Chance must soon be postulated,\nand \"blind laws\" are held insufficient because not unlikely to become\nguilty of incidental misdirection. This need of auxiliary postulates\nhas determined some very staunch advocates of Evolution to maintain\nthat the circle of evolving laws or forces must certainly be ruled\nby some Intelligence, either inherent and immanent (mind and movement\nidentical),--or else separate, transcendental, and probably personal,\nsuperintending and superior to them all.[ay]\n\nIndeed the affirmation of Mind in Nature as a positively perceived\nFact appears to be the sure direction of our human understanding, if\nallowed to observe and judge in a common-sense way. And the reason of\nthe thing is obvious. Whenever we perceive anything by bodily vision\nand touch, or other material instruments, we unhesitatingly attribute\nto it a material existence. We derive our impression from a material\nantecedent, and say _here_ is a corporeal substance,--in a word,--body.\nSo, on the other hand, whenever material instruments are dispensed\nwith, (because inadequate and unsuitable), and when Mind alone is\nused as our medium of perception, we are quite sure that what we\nperceive is not Body but Mind. In this manner, we know what to say of\narrangement, counterbalance, superior excellence, (which means superior\nfitness), tendency to a function, (that is fitness in movement), or of\na system of relation and correlation transcending the highest flight\nof human imagination. We say at once, _here_ is Mind. We do not think\nit necessary to employ a periphrasis, and reason on the properties of\nintelligence, any more than we should, when receiving information from\nour senses, commence a syllogism on the properties of Matter. We simply\nsay in the two several cases,--here is body,--here is mind. And, as\nregards both propositions, we are in all likelihood equally safe in\nsaying so.\n\nThe real question, therefore, remains just as we before stated it. We\nthen derived our statement from the process of production,--first by\nanalyzing it, and next, by shewing that the analysis was verified in\nexperience. We have since run some risk of repetition, in order to look\nat the whole subject of Mind in Nature from various points of view. The\neffect has been to confirm for us, the issue above raised as being the\nright and true question. We must not ask, \"Is there Mind in the natural\nworld?\" but \"What _kind_ and _degree_ of Intelligence do we, from our\nobservation of facts, attribute to the Mind evidenced in the Universe?\"\n\nIt is in answering this question that the _fitnesses_ of organized\nstructures yield so many important considerations. We are not however\nobliged to follow the chain of the Design argument, liken these\nstructures to objects of human art, and say, here is Design implying\na Designer. We may quite as easily look at them in the light of the\ngreat productive Law we have been investigating. Fitness consists in\nthe nicety of the manner in which Function is correlated with Power.\nThroughout the realm of organisms, vegetable and animal, the most\nbeautiful examples of such correlation meet us at every turn.[az] When\ntherefore we put our query, what character may here be ascribed to\nthe Mundane Intelligence, the reply cannot seem doubtful. Instances\nof pre-eminent Fitness (such as those adduced further on) need not\nbe understood in any other sense than this, in order to accomplish\nthe purpose for which they are described. Neither need such words as\nadaptation or design, used for brevity's sake, be taken as references\nto the analogical argument discussed in our second Chapter. Mr.\nDarwin himself has frequently employed the expressions \"contrivance,\"\n\"purpose,\" etc., without intending any such reference,--nay, rather\nwith the full intention of arguing for a different account of the\n\"contrivances\" he specifies.\n\nFrom such wonderful examples of Fitness, many minds will choose at\nonce to read the broad lesson of Teleology. Be it observed then that\nif this is done, the larger the generality under which the principle\nof Design is conceived, the better for its force in reasoning. As\nan argument, the idea has suffered from the imagination of readers\ndwelling upon the specialities recounted in many valuable books to\nthe exclusion of wider and more universal conceptions. There is a\nvast difference,[ba] between the assertion of a grand Unity, (in\nsubservience to which all other things have their several determinate\npurposes,) and the being able to say in _each_ smaller instance, here\nis _the_ design or intended relation between this individual structure\nor condition, and this sole and definite finality. A good specimen of\nthe difficulty thus occasioned, is an objection of Littr\u00e9's against\nthe idea of Divinely beneficent adaptation. Why, he asks, should the\nbite of a mad dog have been allowed to produce hydrophobia? Why,\nthat is, should the dog's saliva have been so _contrived_, as to\nconvey so virulent a blood poison? The true answer, of course, must\nbe that this effect is but _one_ operation of a much more extensive\nphysiological law;--a law producing results, often of the most\nbeneficial character. We must also, (as the same writer allows), draw\na strong distinction between every law, and what is technically termed\nits \"functioning.\"[200] Littr\u00e9 views Nature as a moving panorama of\nantecedents and consequents;--but he is obliged to confess that the\n_nexus_ is _not_ invariable. There are, indeed, variations, for which\nhe employs this same \"functioning,\" as a kind of apology. The necessity\nof such an apology is in itself a remarkable fact; since it shews how\nlittle rigorous is the common argument used by many physicists against\nthe probability of Miracles. The necessity of natural sequence is,\nafter all, no adamantine fatality; and therefore Testimony to an event\ncontrary to our experience and expectation, may have a most decisive\nvalue.[201]\n\nWe have already shewn that to see a law in Nature, is to see an actual\ninstance of _wide_ intelligence. Now, so seen, it is known as existing\n_in rerum natur\u00e2_--active--energizing--productive. But, suppose we\nfor a moment conceive the intelligible law, as existing only in the\nintelligence itself,--a thought prior to its realization. The law is\n_then_ what writers on natural history often call a _type_;--or, as it\nis termed in the older philosophical language, an _idea_. The readers\nof S. T. Coleridge will not easily forget his chapter reconciling the\nPlatonic and Baconian[bb] methods of Philosophy. It turns, in great\npart, upon the essential identity of _idea_ with _law_. (_Friend_, Vol.\nIII. Essay ix.)\n\nIf, therefore, we perceive in anything creative, or any _system_\nwhatsoever, a harmony of power with function, we call it fitness,\nor even adaptation when describing the actual matter of our own\n_observations_. But, if we speak of the same harmony _as an act of\nmind_, we call it intelligent adaptation. And, this at least, is what\ncareful writers on Natural Theology mean by the word Design. Yet,\ncertain careless objectors have misconceived the plain meaning, so far\nas to assert that if we would speak of any production as designed,\nit must first be proved not only intentional but _arbitrary_. This\nmisconception--(the very opposite of our meaning)--seems to turn upon\nthe mixture of two distinct notions,--the design of _reason_ and the\ndetermination of _caprice_. If Natural Theologians wished to prove that\nthe Designer of the Universe was always doing wrong,--and was always\nright _because_ he did wrong,--it would be necessary to argue that\ndesign and caprice are one and the same thing. But Natural Theology\nendeavours to shew the exact contradictory. Its idea is, above all\nthings, the Idea of a Sovereign Reason manifest in universal Law.\n\nThe rejoinder has been made that at all events a Will is implied in\nDesign;--and that he who wills acts arbitrarily. Of course, there is a\ncertain sense in which this may be true. A Sovereign will _could_ at\npleasure refuse the Right and choose the Wrong, but then it would cease\nto be a Sovereign Reason. That is, it would cease to be Sovereign at\nall, in any true Theology. And we may, likewise, add that the ordinary\ninstances and illustrations of Design never aim at proving Will\n_directly_;--their immediate object is to shew Intelligence, foreseeing\nends or functions, and purposing their attainment. It is clear that\nWill must _indirectly_ be implied in such an argument. But, then, it\nis so implied, partly because all Reason is _per se_ identical with\nWill, and partly because (as we shall endeavour to shew), Causation\nnecessarily emanates from Will. The reader must, however, assign each\nconclusion to its proper argument, and keep each argument to its proper\nconclusion;--a rule which those who dispute for victory, and not for\ntruth, frequently fail to observe.\n\nThe use we are now making of fitness and adaptation is less to prove\nthe existence of Mind in the Universe, than its grandeur, grasp, and\ncomprehensiveness. For this purpose our clearest evidence arises\nfrom the _coincidence_ of several _diverse_ conditions, tending to\none sovereign finality of function. And indeed, this argument from\ncoincidence, is generally the most convincing;--the greater the\n_convergence_ of separate conditions,--the stronger is our assurance\nthat Mind determined the result.[bc] Our sense of sight has always been\na favourite subject in Natural Theology. It is familiar, and, so far as\na broad outline of the function is concerned, may be easily studied by\nany common-sense person. It is, also, evidently _one_ Function; yet,\neven cursory observation shews a great diversity of powers contributing\nto produce it. How diverse they are, may be perceived by supposing\nfirst one and then another element of eyesight to be absent, and\nconsidering what the effect of _each_ deficiency must be.\n\nSuppose, there were no light. The eye then, however beautiful and\nperfect in structure, would not be a means serving any purpose of\nperception. It is clear thus that the eye is an optical instrument.\n\nSuppose, again, light and optical arrangement both in existence, but,\nalso, that the eye had no power of _adjusting_ itself to the direction\nof objects and other circumstances; evidently its function of vision\nwould be very much restricted.\n\nIn relation to this end, the eye is a mechanical[202] instrument.\n\nWe might, further, suppose the optical apparatus to work well, its\nadjustment also to be perfect,--and the picture on the retina no less\nso. But, with this perfect picture, suppose all ended. The function of\neyesight would be as irretrievably gone as in our first case.\n\nThis shews us that the eye does _not_ really see. It is the servant of\nan impressible Power,--and this impressible power uses it, and sees\nthrough it.\n\nSuppose, finally, that the picture on the retina set vibratory nerves\nin movement--each microscopic stroke producing its effect of vibration.\nLet something be seen by the impressible Power, but not apprehended\nas an object of _common_ perception. Let there be no comparison with\nother sensations; no transcript into sense-language, of what is at\nonce seen, touched, heard, smelled, or tasted. Consider, how barren\nand unproductive the result! Eyesight is reduced to a play of coloured\nimages. There can be no malleable material for Intelligence to work\nup. Nothing to be cast into any universal mould;--no possibility of a\ngreedy Mind feeding eagerly through the quick perceiving eye.\n\nIn the absence of information given, or thought stimulated, we must\npronounce such sight unintelligent;--and the Eye an unintelligible\nphenomenon. But why? The anatomical structure remains perfect. It is\nthe _adaptation_ that has been lost along with the finality, and this\nloss is fatal. Hence the paramount importance of finality.\n\nAny student may pursue this ruling idea of \"_adaptation to a functional\nend_,\" through a vast range of the Animal kingdom. There are eyes\nfitted to long distances--almost telescopic;--eyes so contrived as\nto be absolutely microscopical. Then, as the refraction of water\ndiffers from that of air, the optical lenses of fishes become rounded\nalmost like little balls. And, the observer who passes into the\ntribes of Invertebrata, will acquaint himself with eyes mounted\nupon footstalks,[203] and eyes multiplied and placed in different\nsituations. Few natural objects are more wonderful than the contrivance\nof a compound eye. The many hexagonal tubes, which may be reckoned\nby the thousand, are cemented together on one expanded and swollen\nnervous disk, reminding us of the thalamus in the great plant order\nof Composit\u00e6, (Syngenesia),--in the Elecampagne for instance, the\nBur Marigold, Thistle, and Centaurea. A compound eye has a range of\nvision extending over about 180 degrees, (half a circle), and must from\nits structure be endowed with specializing distinctness. Mind in the\nUniverse, is thus presented to us, as in the New Testament,--wide as\nthe whole arch of heaven, but cognizant of a sparrow or a lily.\n\nA creature with diminished vision--such as the Mole--or the Amblyopsis,\nis a curiously interesting study in itself;--still more so as an\nexample of adaptation.\n\nIn old times, the Mole was accounted blind. Aristotle[204] observed\nthat a structural eye exists, but that a skin is drawn over it, and\nthis skin deprives the animal of sight. His observation has made work\nfor commentators, from Simplicius downwards. Trendelenburg (on the\n_De Anima_) confines himself to criticism. Torstrik makes a kind of\napology for not excising \"_qu\u00e6 loco_ [Greek: atop\u00f4tat\u00f4i] _de talp\u00e2\ndicuntur_.\" Cardinal Tolet accepts the observation, and thinks the\nMole's eyes thus admirably protected from the bad effects of a sudden\naccess of light, when he rushes violently into appearance overground.\nNaturalists during many centuries, made the whole history of the mole\na piece of guesswork, and no creature except the Sloth or the Earwig\nhas ever been more generally misrepresented. Perhaps our familiar old\nEnglish \"Moldwarp\" (West of England \"Want\"), might have remained a\npuzzle to this day had not a French courtier[205] fled from the Paris\nRevolution, and devoted his attention to Moles. The fact that the eye\nof our Western Mole is not completely closed, may be proved by throwing\na living specimen into a pond. But, in the South and East of Europe the\n\"blind mole\" does really exist,[206] as has been shown by Erhard and\nthe Prince of Musignano. In more than one species, the skin passes over\nthe eyeball without any loss of hair.\n\nThis diminution of eyesight is a case of what has been called\n\"retrogression.\" Now the Mole is a highly developed Mammal, and his\nposition in the animal kingdom entitles him to the best of eyes. But,\nthey would not suit his habits. The same is true of the Blind-fish of\nKentucky (Amblyopsis Spel\u00e6us). For such a creature, not the distinct\nvision of objects,--but a sensation of light,--was the _desirable_\npossession,--and the creature has it.[207]\n\nIt does not in the least matter, as a question of Fitness, whether\nthis retrograde condition of the eye was brought about by natural laws\nslowly acting upon the animal frame, or produced in some more rapid\nway. The fitness is the same; and, as we are at present engaged, not on\nproving the existence of Mind, but in illustrating the greatness of a\nconfessedly existing mind, these instances of far reaching adaptation\nare very strongly in point.\n\nOf the cavernous life and habits of the Amblyopsis there is not much\nto be said; though the idea of a happy existence amidst depths of\nsepulchral gloom, naturally excites our imagination. But \"the little\ngentleman in black\" whose health used to be enthusiastically drunk a\ncentury and a half ago, is a perfect study[208] in himself. We are\ninterested by his fairy-like gift of hearing (noted by Shakespeare);\nhis gluttony; his fleetness of foot; his combativeness; and his\ncastle-building! As a civil and military engineer, he far surpasses the\nbeaver, though dwelling in dark places, and with only a dubious pair of\neyes in his scheming quick-conceiving head.\n\nProbably, the sense _we_ should all least wish to lose is our eyesight.\nIts perpetual delight, and its capacity for improvement by training\nare powerful motives for treasuring its possession. The savage and the\nmicroscopist, the artist and the astronomer, all train their faculty\nof vision; and how differently do these four classes of eyes see!--The\ndifference is, we know, in exact proportion to the intelligence which\nemploys and educates them. And, conversely, how the nobly-governed\neye informs and educates the Mind! What a world of hope, then, as\nwell as beauty, seems to die when we conceive the blind man in his\ndim solitude! Yet the contentment of its sightless inmates, is one of\nthe most salient comforts of every blind asylum. Most likely, their\ncheerfulness depends on the great use of finger-dexterity, and the\nexquisite susceptibility of the ear. And these delicate endowments,\nwhich make our several senses inlets of happiness, are amongst the most\nfascinating illustrations of the Universal Mind with which we have to\ndo.\n\nThe structure of the ear is far less commonly dwelt upon by most\nwriters, than the structure of the eye. Indeed, its organization seems\nto less certainty explained, the problem being, of course, to trace\nthe transmission of sound to the auditory nerve. But, as in ancient\nEgypt, so in modern England, the treatment of disease in special\norgans has been divided amongst special therapeutists; and the ear\ndoes not fail to benefit by being better understood. There is, even\nnow, room for hypothesis in some parts of the process of sonorous\ntransmission,--and beyond that process, science does not pretend to\ngo. Modern views, however, as Dr. Tyndall truly says, \"present the\nphenomena in a connected and intelligible form, and should they be\ndoomed to displacement by a more correct or comprehensive theory,\nit will assuredly be found that the wonder is not diminished by the\nsubstitution of the truth.\" No one has put the wonder into a more\nintelligible shape than this well known writer, at the close of his\nbook upon Sound.[209]\n\nEmploying instances of Design for the purpose, to us most relevant, and\ngleaning a few among hosts of shining illustrations, there is nothing\nmore alluring than the spectacle of the organic world, considered as\na source, not of life only, nor of information only, but of emotional\npleasure and never failing enjoyment. No kind of existence can be\nmore depressing to our highly-strung human nervous-system, than the\nshut up occupations which overgrown cities necessitate. Yet, with\nwhat unrepressed vigour of delight does the artizan, the physician,\nthe schoolmaster, or the curate of a town parish, look upon the open\nworld beyond! And, never has there existed any human being more truly\nimpressible by Nature's loveliness, or more skilled in conveying the\nimpression to the minds of others, than a genuine British Naturalist.\nFor the holiday-maker to walk with such a lover of Nature through\nfield and forest, over moor and mountain, by rivulet, lake or sea,\nis to gain a new sense of wonder and admiration;--new perceptions of\nexcellence, symmetry, and unity; while freshened emotions of religious\nawe and trust keep springing upwards from them all. It is with outward\nnature, as it is with individual natures; the regard of a loving eye\nis the true revealer of hidden secrets. For in reality we see, not\nonly with our bodily sense and our contemplative reason, but also\nwith the strength and insight of affection. And thus many a weary Man\nperpetually finds the aspect of the visible universe indescribably\nsoothing amidst his own confusions and disappointments. He may feel,\nat times, that his human heart can penetrate beyond what eye and head\nhave taught him; and, while thoughtfully observing the footprints of\ncreative mind, he can feel within his bosom a sense of superhuman\ntenderness, like the warm breath of his living Creator.\n\nThe very fact that highly-endowed and deeply thoughtful men[210]\nhave so felt and spoken, ought not to be without its influence.\nThere is much conveyed--very much indeed--by the truth that the world\nis beautiful. If, when we examine natural production, intelligent\noperation is seen to imply an operative intelligence, is it not also\ntrue that realized beauty implies an ideal beauty, intelligently\npreconceived in a Mind itself beautiful? Had there been nothing in\nearth or sky to soothe, elevate, and make happy, with _what different\nfeelings_, should we have attempted to picture productive Mind at work\nthrough an unlovely Universe!\n\n\nADDITIONAL NOTE.\n\nON THE DOCTRINE OF CHANCES APPLIED TO THE STRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE\nEYE.\n\n\nThe present Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford wrote, in 1867,\nas follows:--\n\n \"The chances of any accidental variation in such an instrument being\n an _improvement_ are small indeed. Suppose, for instance, one of the\n surfaces of the crystalline lens of the eye of a creature, possessing\n a crystalline and cornea, to be accidentally altered, then I say,\n that unless the form of the other surface is simultaneously altered,\n _in one only way_ out of millions of possible ways, the eye would\n not be optically _improved_. An alteration also in the two surfaces\n of the crystalline lens, whether accidental or otherwise, would\n involve a definite alteration in the form of the cornea, or in the\n distance of its surface from the centre of the crystalline lens, in\n order that the eye may be optically better. All these alterations\n must be simultaneous and definite in amount, and these definite\n amounts must coexist in obedience to an extremely complicated law.\n To my apprehension then, that so complex an instrument as an eye\n should undergo a succession of millions of _improvements_, by means\n of a succession of millions of _accidental_ alterations, is not\n less improbable, than if all the letters in the 'Origin of Species'\n were placed in a box, and on being shaken and poured out millions\n on millions of times, they should at last come out together in the\n order in which they occur in that fascinating and, in general, highly\n philosophical work.\n\n \"But my objections do not stop here. The improvement of an organ must\n be an improvement relative to the new circumstances by which the organ\n is surrounded. Suppose, then, that an eye is altered for the better\n in relation to one set of circumstances under which it is placed.\n By-and-bye there arise a second set of circumstances, and the eye is\n again, by Natural Selection, altered and improved relatively to the\n second set of circumstances. What is there to make the second set of\n circumstances such that the second improvement (relative to them)\n shall be an improvement or progress _in the direction_ of the ultimate\n goal of the human eye? Why should not the second improvement be a\n retrogression _away from_ the ultimate organ now possessed by man, and\n necessary to his well-being? But all this suiting of the succession\n of circumstances is to go on, not once or twice, but millions on\n millions of times. If this be so, then not only must there be a\n BIAS in the order of the succession of the circumstances,\n or, at all events, in the vast outnumbering of the unfavourable\n circumstances by the favourable, but so strong a bias, as to remove\n the whole process from the accidental to the _intentional_. The _bias_\n implies the existence of a Law, a Mind, a Will. The process becomes\n one not of Natural Selection, but of _Selection by an Intelligent\n Will_.\" _Analogies in the Progress of Nature and Grace_, (being the\n Hulsean Lectures for 1867,) Appendix A, p. 125 seq. The whole article\n should be carefully studied by the reader.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[180] Nov. Org. II. 4, last paragraph. \"For a true and perfect rule of\noperation then the direction will be _that it be certain, free, and\ndisposing or leading to action_. And this is the same thing with the\ndiscovery of the true Form. For the Form of a nature is such, that\ngiven the Form the nature infallibly follows. Therefore it is always\npresent when the nature is present, and universally implies it, and is\nconstantly inherent in it. Again, the Form is such, that if it be taken\naway the nature infallibly vanishes. Therefore it is always absent when\nthe nature is absent, and implies its absence, and inheres in nothing\nelse.\"\n\n[181] Sentence following immediately in N. O. II. 4. \"Lastly, the\ntrue Form is such that it deduces the given nature from some source\nof being which is inherent in more natures, and which is better known\nin the natural order of things than the Form itself. For a true and\nperfect axiom of knowledge then the direction and precept will be,\n_that another nature be discovered which is convertible with the given\nnature, and yet is a limitation of a more general nature, as of a true\nand real genus_. Now these two directions, the one active the other\ncontemplative, are one and the same thing; and what in operation is\nmost useful, that in knowledge is most true.\" _Ellis and Spedding_,\nVol. IV. pp. 121, 2.\n\n[182] Savery was celebrated by Dr. Darwin as the man, who,--\n\n    \"Bade with cold streams the quick expansion stop\n    And sank the immense of vapour to a drop.\"\n\nSavery's patent (the first granted for a steam engine), is dated 1698.\nPapin suggested in 1695 a partial vacuum under a piston for raising\nwater, so as to make the pressure of the air the moving power. Most\npeople are aware of the effect upon invention produced by the great\nmining interest,--the necessity of pumping out underground _adits_,\nwater logged, and therefore inaccessible.\n\n[183] At the end of his Lectures on the Steam Engine.\n\nHulls' was the first attempt to convert the reciprocating movement\nof the piston-rod into rotation; and it does not rival the crank\nin simplicity. But there is a contrivance for equalizing the first\nirregular motion by weights, which possesses real beauty, and has the\nfurther advantage of readily increasing or diminishing the velocity of\nthe wheels. The wheels themselves are fixed at some little distance\nastern of his boat which he intends to be used for towing ships.\nThey are thus (as Professor Rigaud observes) nearer \"to what may be\nconsidered as the centre of the compound body, which they were the\nmeans of propelling.\"\n\nSuch was the earliest patent; but proposals for the same object had\nbeen made still earlier. Papin submitted one to the Royal Society in\n1708, comprehending a \"boat to be rowed with oars moved with heat,\" and\nengines capable of throwing bullets and raising water. Sir Isaac Newton\nreported on the invention and recommended experiments, but the Society\ncould not or would not grant a sum not exceeding \u00a315 for the purpose.\nAgain, the Acta Eruditorum for 1690, preserves a previous proposal\nmade by Papin, accounts of which will be found in Farey's _Treatise on\nthe Steam Engine_, and Professor Rigaud's _Early Proposals for Steam\nNavigation_. In the latter publication (a paper read to the Ashmolean\nSociety) is also contained (pp. 11-14) a summary of the most wonderful\namong all records relating to this subject;--the trial of Blasco de\nGaray's steam-boat at Barcelona under Charles V. \"The experiment was\nmade the 17th June 1543 on board a vessel called the Trinidad, of 200\nbarrels burden, which had lately arrived with wheat from Colibre.\nThe vessel was seen at a given moment to move forward and turn about\nat pleasure, without sail, or oar, or human agency, and without any\nvisible mechanism except a huge boiler of hot water, and a complicated\ncombination of wheels and paddles.\" The entire or partial credibility\nof this record has been often argued _pro_ and _con_. Professor Rigaud\nthinks it \"not impossible that even a magnificent invention, like this,\nmay have sunk into oblivion.\" Perhaps not, considering that the Spain\nof Cervantes is the Spain of Southey, and Mr. Borrow. A clock may stand\nstill, but a nation which does so is retrograde.\n\n[184] The Chinese seeing our steam-ships at Chusan (in the war of 1841,\n2), made paddlewheel vessels driven by men inside their hulls. Ignorant\nof steam-power, they achieved an engine without its principle. So too\nPrince Rupert gave a rotary motion to oars by horse-power, producing a\ngreater velocity than sixteen watermen could impart to the Royal barge.\n\n[185] See second note on this chapter.\n\n[186] Darwin's _Descent of Man_, I. p. 179. Mr. Darwin adds in a note\nthat \"Sir C. Lyell had already (_Principles of Geology_, 1868. II. 489)\ncalled attention, in a striking passage, to the evil influence of the\nHoly Inquisition, in having lowered, through selection, the general\nstandard of intelligence in Europe.\"\n\n[al] The term \"relativity\" is employed here on account of its breadth\nand comprehensiveness, and because it does not imply the adoption\nof some special hypothesis as to the essence of things or formative\nprinciples themselves;--such theorizing being no necessary condition of\nthe present line of thought.\n\nLet it be observed, however, that any law of the natural world by\nvirtue of which, the apprehended relativity becomes operative, must be\nconceived as in its own nature _genetic_ or _causative_, in order to\nexplain Production. What is here meant may easily be understood by a\nfew common-sense reflections.\n\nThe word \"Law\" is one of the most ambiguous expressions possible.\nPerhaps its most familiar use is in statistical science, where\nit usually means the result gained from averages. For example,\nbirth-rates, death-rates, and rates of exchange are spoken of as laws\nof increase, of mortality, and of the money market. Sometimes nothing\nbut the generalized fact is signified; sometimes it is intended to\nimply that these formul\u00e6 govern, or ought to govern social questions,\nor problems of political economy.\n\nIn like manner, when a law is the verbal embodiment of any principle,\nit may be considered as a perfectly abstract proposition; or else\nas a governing rule or maxim, under which definite and actual cases\ncan be brought. The principles of arithmetic or geometry are laws to\nwhich every practical question involving number or measurement must be\nsubmitted. The laws of thought govern our reasonings, or at least they\nought to do so.\n\nAnother way of looking at Law is to consider it in its commonest\norigin--_i.e._, as the expression of a law-maker's will. But when a\nwriter on Natural Theology speaks of the laws of the physical world,\nand then adds that \"law implies a lawgiver,\" he either supposes himself\nto have demonstrated the applicability of this maxim in relation to his\nown science;--or if not he is simply assuming the whole question at\nissue. [Compare _Additional Note_ B, to Chapter II. p. 98, _seq._]\n\nThe remaining most usual employment of the word, is to designate a\n_Force_, some actual moving power tending to realize itself in some\nway, working out a function either for good or evil, developing the\nsecret of its own existence by the effects which it produces.\n\nTake an example from real life. A medical man coming to a certain rural\ndistrict, observed its high death-rate, traced it to the very great\nprevalence of small-pox in the place, and formulated a law embodying\nthe results of several years _averages_ which appeared sufficiently\nsurprising. A further acquaintance with the habits of the neighbourhood\ndisclosed the fact that inoculation was continually practised, and as\ncontinually kept secret on account of the penalties attached to it.\nThe inquirer took advantage of the opportunity afforded by a custom he\ncould not control to investigate its consequences. A few years later,\nhe arrived at exact conclusions determining the law of activity exerted\nby the virus, under certain conditions. In other words, he found the\n_genetic_ law of its operation.\n\nNow, if the death-rate,--a piece of statistical law,--be contrasted\nwith this last named law of virus-growth, the difference between these\ntwo formul\u00e6 is at once obvious. Without any scientific discussion or\nrefining, we grasp a broad common-sense distinction, which is all that\nseems needed here. For our purpose, it would be useless to inquire\nwhether the law of virus-growth may be resolved into laws higher and\nfar more recondite still. An inventor seizing the useful law he wants,\nwill not stop to ask any such questions; he will apply his power and\nrealize the function he has in view at the moment.\n\nAnother common-sense instance is to think of the properties of any\nfamiliar substance; the acridity of an alkali, for instance; its power\nof effervescing with acids, and neutralizing them; its behaviour as\na reagent in a variety of ways, long to enumerate, but practically\nuseful. When we have described all these properties, have we defined\nthe whole substance? In other words, is the alkali anything more than\na bundle of properties momentarily known to us? Undoubtedly there is\none point more to be noticed; its principle of _permanence_, until\nbrought under new conditions which dissolve its unity, and destroy the\ninter-coherence of its properties. Now whatever maintains this unity\nis the law of its substance. There are laws of nature under which\nboth it and countless other substances are formed, continue, and are\ndissolved, making way for unending series of fresh combinations. And\nthis mode of apprehending the unities we call substances, raises the\nself-same idea of genetic law which has been under consideration. If we\nare asked whether we can explain such laws further, we usually reply by\nsaying \"these are the forces of the natural world.\" Their correlations\nand modifications rule the kingdom of nature, and the great globe\nitself;--nay, they wield the empire of the Universe!\n\nSuch laws, such forces, have engrossed the attention of physical\nphilosophers from the rude beginnings of inquiry. They have led to\nspeculations of all kinds;--the best known of which is the distinction\nbetween Form and Matter in existing objects;--a distinction in common\nuse amongst persons who but dimly guess at the past issues which it\nraises. Nothing, however, can be said on such a topic here, except by\nway of reference to the philosophic system of Francis Bacon. [Compare\np. 92 _ante_, and the Synopsis prefixed to this chapter.]\n\n[am] One of the most curious _morceaux_ in the history of Science,\nis the fact that the nature of Heat has been several times thus\ndetermined, viz., by Bacon, Locke, and Count Rumford. See Tyndall on\n_Heat as a Mode of Motion_, Section II., and Appendix.\n\nBacon determines the nature of Heat by way of exemplifying \"The\nInvestigation of Forms.\" It is his sole instance, and is most\ninstructive. (_Nov. Org._ II., 11 seq., in E. and S. Vol. IV., pp.\n127-155.) \"For example,\" he begins, \"let the investigation be into\nthe Form of Heat.\" It need scarcely be observed that the twofold\nrelation of his \"Forms\" to Metaphysic and to Physic is one of the\nleast explained parts of Bacon's vast system. How little his theory\nof Induction is commonly understood may be perceived by any skilled\nreader of Macaulay's well known Essay--a composition (to borrow a great\nschoolmaster's words) \"displaying an almost inconceivable amount of\nnescience.\"\n\n[187] It is worth observation how often the abstract entity--(the\nprinciple of the whole realization)--is forgotten even by scientific\npersons. Forgotten, we say, since surely forgetfulness is the\ntrue origin of many futile attempts at explaining away essential\nprinciples. The following very curious case in point is narrated by\nS. T. Coleridge:--\"There is still preserved in the Royal Observatory\nat Richmond the model of a bridge, constructed by the late justly\ncelebrated Mr. Atwood (at that time, however, in the decline of life),\nin the confidence that he had explained the wonderful properties of\nthe arch as resulting from the compound action of simple wedges, or of\nthe rectilinear solids of which the material arch was composed; and\nof which supposed discovery his model was to exhibit ocular proof.\nAccordingly, he took a sufficient number of wedges of brass highly\npolished. Arranging these at first on a skeleton arch of wood, he\nthen removed this scaffolding or support; and the bridge not only\nstood firm, without any cement between the squares, but he could take\naway any given portion of them, as a third or a half, and appending\na correspondent weight, at either side, the remaining part stood as\nbefore. Our venerable sovereign, who is known to have had a particular\ninterest and pleasure in all works and discoveries of mechanic\nscience or ingenuity, looked at it for awhile stedfastly, and, as his\nmanner was, with quick and broken expressions of praise and courteous\napprobation, in the form of answers to his own questions. At length\nturning to the constructor, he said, 'But Mr. Atwood, you have presumed\nthe figure. You have put the arch first in this wooden skeleton. Can\nyou build a bridge of the same wedges in any other figure? A straight\nbridge, or with two lines touching at the apex? If not, is it not\nevident that the bits of brass derive their continuance in the present\nposition from the property of the arch, and not the arch from the\nproperty of the wedge?' The objection was fatal, the justice of the\nremark not to be resisted.\"--(_The Friend._ Vol. III., pp. 176, 7.)\n\n_Addition._ Of \"those abstract entities absolute in truth,\" Bacon\nwrites (_Nov. Org._ II. 9), \"Let the investigation of Forms, which are\n(in the eye of reason at least, and in their essential law) eternal\nand immutable, constitute _Metaphysics_:\" and again (Ibid. 15), \"To\nGod, truly, the Giver and Architect of Forms, and it may be to the\nangels and higher intelligences, it belongs to have an affirmative\nknowledge of forms immediately, and from the first contemplation. But\nthis assuredly is more than man can do, to whom it is granted only to\nproceed at first by negatives, and at last to end in affirmatives,\nafter exclusion has been exhausted.\" And of their utility, as applied\ntruths, he says (Ibid. 2), \"Though in nature nothing really exists\nbeside individual bodies, performing pure individual acts according to\na fixed law, yet in philosophy this very law, and the investigation,\ndiscovery, and explanation of it, is the foundation as well of\nknowledge as of operation. And it is this law, with its clauses, that I\nmean when I speak of _Forms_; a name which I the rather adopt because\nit has grown into use and become familiar.\"\n\nAnd these passages are in perfect harmony with Bacon's precept \"that\nPhysic should handle that which supposeth in Nature only a being and\nmoving (and natural necessity), and Metaphysic should handle that which\nsupposeth further in nature a reason, understanding, and platform\n(ideam).\" (_Advancement._ II. E. and S. p. 353.) The reader will also\nperceive how natural it was for Bacon to place mathematical science\n\"as a branch of metaphysic; for the subject of it being Quantity;\nnot Quantity indefinite, which is but a relative and belongeth to\n_philosophia prima_ (as hath been said,) but Quantity determined or\nproportionable; it appeareth to be one of the Essential Forms of\nthings; as that that is causative in nature of a number of effects; ...\nand it is true also that of all other forms (as we understand forms)\nit is the most abstracted and separable from matter, and therefore\nmost proper to metaphysic; which hath likewise been the cause why it\nhath been better laboured and enquired than any of the other forms,\nwhich are more immersed into matter. For it being the nature of the\nmind of man (to the extreme prejudice of knowledge) to delight in the\nspacious liberty of generalities, as in a champion region, and not in\nthe inclosures of particularity; the mathematics of all other knowledge\nwere the goodliest fields to satisfy that appetite.\" (Ibid. p. 359.)\nCompare this _Essay_, p. 91 _ante_, together with foot-note.\n\n[an] \"Observe,\" writes the late Sir B. Brodie, \"observe the effect\nwhich the general diffusion of knowledge produces on society at large;\nhow it draws the different classes of it into more free communication\nwith each other; how its tendency is to make the laws more impartial,\nbring even the most despotic governments under the influence of public\nopinion, and show them that they have no real security except in the\ngood will of the people. Knowledge goes hand-in-hand with civilization.\nIt is necessary to the giving full effect to the precepts of the\nChristian faith. It was from the want of it that Galileo was tortured\nby the Inquisition, that Servetus was burned by Calvin, that the\nHuguenots were persecuted and slaughtered by Louis XIV., and that in\nnumerous other instances one sect of Christians has conceived it to be\ntheir duty to exterminate another. It is a misapplication of the term\ncivilization to apply it to any form of society in which ignorance\nis the rule and knowledge the exception. If a Being of superior\nintelligence were to look down from some higher sphere on our doings\nhere on the earth, is it to be supposed that he would regard the Duke\nof Buckingham, dancing at the French Court, and scattering the pearls\nwith which his dress was ornamented, on the floor, as being really\nsuperior to an Australian savage; or that he would see in the foreign\nPrince, who at a later period exhibited himself at another Court with\nhis boots glittering with diamonds, any better emblem of civilization\nthan in the negro chief, who gratifies his vanity by strutting about in\nthe cast-off uniform of a general officer?\" _Psychological Inquiries._\nPart II., pp. 14, 15.\n\n[188] \"A few phrases of Aristotle,\" says Dr. Brown, (Works I. p. 341,)\n\"are perhaps even at this moment exercising no small sway on the very\nminds which smile at them with scorn.\" Mr. Carlyle asks, \"Do not Books\nstill accomplish _miracles_, as _Runes_ were fabled to do?... Consider\nwhether any Rune, in the wildest imagination of Mythologist, ever did\nsuch wonders as, on the actual firm Earth, some Books have done.\"\n_Heroes_, p. 252.\n\n[189] No writer has ever dwelt more on this truth than Coleridge, and\nno writer ever had a stronger reason for dwelling upon it. Perhaps the\nordinary public has seldom been more unjust than in its estimate of\nColeridge's addiction to opium. The occasion of his first use of it\nwas a venial error, his servitude was heavy, and the account of his\nsufferings and struggles most deeply affecting. Then, his final victory\n(respecting which so little is generally said) was a very noble moral\nachievement.\n\n[ao] Men have aimed at accomplishing their purpose partly by training\nanimals, and partly by breeding through select specimens of each race.\nThe two principles thus relied on are habit and heredity. Respecting\nthe latter of these a note of considerable length had been intended in\nthis place. But the reader interested in the general question can learn\nsufficient details in Dr. Carpenter's _Mental Physiology_ together with\nthe authorities therein referred to by him.\n\nThe following instances adduced by Mr. Wallace to show how improvement\nthrough heredity is visibly limited are very remarkable. \"In the matter\nof speed, a limit of a definite kind as regards land animals does exist\nin nature. All the swiftest animals--deer, antelopes, hares, foxes,\nlions, leopards, horses, zebras, and many others--have reached very\nnearly the same degree of speed. Although the swiftest of each must\nhave been for ages preserved, and the slowest must have perished, we\nhave no reason to believe there is any advance of speed. The possible\nlimit under existing conditions, and perhaps under possible terrestrial\nconditions, has been long ago reached.\" He immediately proceeds to\nplace in contrast with these, some examples where progress is not thus\nbarred. \"In cases, however, where this limit had not been so nearly\nreached as in the horse, we have been enabled to make a more marked\nadvance and to produce a greater difference of form. The wild dog is an\nanimal that hunts much in company, and trusts more to endurance than to\nspeed. Man has produced the greyhound, which differs much more from the\nwolf or the dingo than the racer does from the wild Arabian. Domestic\ndogs, again, have varied more in size and in form than the whole family\nof Canid\u00e6 in a state of Nature. No wild dog, fox, or wolf, is either\nso small as some of the smallest terriers and spaniels, or so large as\nthe largest varieties of hound or Newfoundland dog. And, certainly, no\ntwo wild animals of the family differ so widely in form and proportions\nas the Chinese pug and the Italian greyhound, or the bulldog and the\ncommon greyhound. The known range of variation is, therefore, more than\nenough for the derivation of all the forms of Dogs, Wolves, and Foxes\nfrom a common ancestor.\" Wallace. _Natural Selection_, pp. 292, 3.\n\nDr. Prichard's accounts of similar variations in his _Natural History\nof Man_ and other ethnological works are particularly interesting.\n\nHabit is a topic more germane to the subject of self-training, and is\ntherefore examined at some length in our text.\n\nIt seems natural that the empire of both Habit and Heredity should\nbe strongest over the purely automatous, and the instinctive or\nsemi-instinctive actions of mankind. Witness the effect of Caste\ninstitutions, Guilds, and family vocations. Regular occupation struck a\ncertain visitor to this world as producing a like result:--\n\n    \"Nimbly,\" quoth he, \"do the fingers move\n    If a man be but used to his trade.\"\n\n\n[ap] \"They that deny a God destroy man's nobility; for certainly man\nis of kin to the beast by his body; and, if he be not of kin to God by\nhis spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature. It destroys likewise\nmagnanimity, and the raising of human nature; for take an example of\na dog, and mark what a generosity and courage he will put on when he\nfinds himself maintained by a man, who to him is instead of a God, or\n'melior natura'; which courage is manifestly such as that creature,\nwithout that confidence of a better nature than his own, could never\nattain. So man, when he resteth and assureth himself upon divine\nprotection and favour, gathereth a force and faith, which human nature\nin itself could not obtain'; therefore, as atheism is in all respects\nhateful, so in this, that it depriveth human nature of the means to\nexalt itself above human frailty.\" Bacon. _Essay on Atheism_, p. 56.\n\n    \"What joy to watch in lower creature\n    Such dawning of a moral nature,\n    And how (the rule all things obey)\n    They look to a higher mind to be their law and stay!\"\n\n_Remains_ of A. H. Hallam, privately printed.\n\n[aq] The difference between brute and Man appeared so vast to Bacon\nthat, following Telesius in this as in some other respects, he adopted\nas a doctrine the duality of the human soul. He maintains it at length\nin the _De Augmentis_ iv. 3, a chapter which begins thus:--\"Let us\nnow proceed to the doctrine which concerns the Human Soul, from the\ntreasures whereof all other doctrines are derived. The parts thereof\nare two; the one treats of the rational soul, which is divine; the\nother of the irrational, which is common with brutes.... Now this soul\n(as it exists in man) is only the instrument of the rational soul, and\nhas its origin like that of the brutes in the dust of the earth....\nFor there are many and great excellencies of the human soul above the\nsouls of brutes, manifest even to those who philosophise according to\nthe sense. Now wherever the mark of so many and great excellencies is\nfound, there also a specific difference ought to be constituted; and\ntherefore I do not much like the confused and promiscuous manner in\nwhich philosophers have handled the functions of the soul; as if the\nhuman soul differed from the spirit of brutes in degree rather than in\nkind; as the sun differs from the stars, or gold from metals.\"\n\n[190] We have it on Coleridge's authority that \"Lord Erskine, speaking\nof animals, hesitating to call them brutes, hit upon that happy\nphrase--'the mute creation.'\" Would this were true! exclaims some\ninvalid, nervously agonized by cats and dogs, cocks and hens, and\nlistening with horror to their various cries and noises. But strictly\nspeaking Lord Erskine was right,--for the animal world is mute as far\nas real language is concerned. Compare Max M\u00fcller on the \"Bow-wow\nTheory.\" _Lectures on Language_, Series I. Lecture ix.\n\n[191] The Poet's thought, not more imaginative than true, should be\nkept in mind when estimating the difference between gregariousness and\nsociety. If the latter be held a development of the former, it must\nhave been transformed in the progress of its descent. Where affinities\nare really traceable between the human and the unreasoning world, they\nmay perhaps be referred with greater probability to a common ancestry\nthan to a lineal pedigree. And the more remote the alleged origin, the\nless unlikely it may appear.\n\n[192] \"Sir Humphrey Davy, when a boy, was placed under a schoolmaster\nwho neglected his duties, and adverting to this subject in a letter\naddressed to his mother after he was settled in London, he says, 'I\nconsider it as fortunate that I was left much to myself as a child, and\nput on no particular plan of study, and that I enjoyed much idleness\nat Mr. Coryton's school. I, perhaps, owe to these circumstances the\nlittle talents I have, and their peculiar application. What I am I made\nmyself. I say this without vanity, and in pure simplicity of heart.'\"\nBrodie's _Psychological Inquiries_, I. 29.\n\n\"The regular course of studies, the years of academical and\nprofessional education, have not yielded me better facts than some\nidle books under the bench at the Latin School. What we do not call\neducation is more precious than that which we call so. We form no\nguess, at the time of receiving a thought, of its comparative value.\nAnd education often wastes its efforts in attempts to thwart and balk\nthis natural magnetism, which is sure to select what belongs to it.\"\nEmerson. _Spiritual Laws._\n\n[ar] \"We can command Nature only by obeying her; nor can Art avail\nanything except as Nature's handmaiden. We can affect the conditions\nunder which Nature works; but things artificial as well as things\nnatural are in reality produced Not by Art but Nature. Our power is\nmerely based upon our knowledge of the procedure which Nature follows.\nShe is never really thwarted or controlled by our operations, though\nshe may be induced to depart from her usual course, and under new and\nartificial conditions to produce new phenomena and new substances.\n\n\"Natural philosophy, considered from this point of view, is therefore\nonly an answer to the question, How does Nature work in the production\nof phenomena?\" R. L. Ellis. _Preface to Bacon's Philosophical Works_,\nVol. I. p. 59.\n\n[as] \"The philosopher, not less than the poet, postpones the\napparent order and relations of things to the empire of thought.\n'The problem of philosophy,' according to Plato, 'is, for all that\nexists conditionally, to find a ground unconditioned and absolute.' It\nproceeds on the faith that a law determines all phenomena, which being\nknown, the phenomena can be predicted. That law, when in the mind, is\nan idea. Its beauty is infinite. The true philosopher and the true poet\nare one, and a beauty, which is truth, and a truth, which is beauty,\nis the aim of both. Is not the charm of one of Plato's or Aristotle's\ndefinitions, strictly like that of the Antigone of Sophocles? It is,\nin both cases, that a spiritual life has been imparted to nature; that\nthe solid seeming block of matter has been pervaded and dissolved by a\nthought; that this feeble human being has penetrated the vast masses of\nnature with an informing soul, and recognized itself in their harmony,\nthat is, seized their law. In physics, when this is attained, the\nmemory disburthens itself of its cumbrous catalogues of particulars,\nand carries centuries of observation in a single formula.\" Emerson.\n_Idealism._\n\n\"He who studies the concrete and neglects the abstract cannot be called\nan interpreter of nature. Such was Bacon's judgment.\" Robert Leslie\nEllis, in _Bacon's Works_, Vol. I. p. 26.\n\n\"If a man's knowledge be confined to the efficient and material causes\n(which are unstable causes, and merely vehicles, or causes which\nconvey the form in certain cases) he may arrive at new discoveries in\nreference to substances in some degree similar to one another, and\nselected beforehand; but he does not touch the deeper boundaries of\nthings. But whosoever is acquainted with Forms, embraces the unity of\nnature in substances the most unlike; and is able therefore to detect\nand bring to light things never yet done, and such as neither the\nvicissitudes of nature, nor industry in experimenting, nor accident\nitself, would ever have brought into act, and which would never have\noccurred to the thought of man. From the discovery of Forms therefore\nresults truth in speculation and freedom in operation.\"--Bacon. _Novum\nOrganon_, Book II. Aph. III.\n\n[at] The problem awaiting the philosophic physicist runs as follows:--\n\nIt remains to be seen how closely and with what degree of distinctness,\nscience can approximate these impalpable forces governing the natural\nworld, to the forces we are accustomed to call immaterial, because they\nbecome known to us by the activities of Thought and Will.\n\nThis problem--the incorporeity of Matter, or a near approach to\nit--has been a favourite subject of speculation in all ages. The\ncurious reader may track it from the pre-and post-Christian Greeks\nthrough Arabian and Jewish philosophies to the Schoolmen (who borrowed\nfrom Jews unknowingly) and so transmitted it down like an heirloom\nto our own later controversialists. The subject has been treated on\nMetaphysical grounds, for Religious interests, or as a weapon keen\nedged in demolishing antagonistic cosmologies. But it has not often\nbeen entertained for purely scientific reasons, and as one of those\nso-called \"useless questions\" which always turn out most prolific\nseminal principles, fertile in explaining nature and throwing out\nbranches in numerous unforeseen directions.\n\nIt was thus however and with no side views that the illustrious Faraday\nlooked at this subject. With what effect may be best learned by putting\ntogether two separate accounts of his reasoning.\n\nIn 1844, Dr. Bence Jones informs us Faraday (then in his 53rd year)\nindulged in \"A speculation respecting that view of the nature of matter\nwhich considers its ultimate atoms as centres of force, and _not as so\nmany little bodies surrounded by forces_.... The particle, indeed, is\nsupposed to exist only by these forces, and where they are it is.\"\n\nThis speculation did in fact give a tone to that memorable season--now\nthirty years ago.\n\nDr. Tyndall says:--\"On Friday, January 19, 1844, he opened the weekly\nevening meetings of the Royal Institution by a discourse entitled 'A\nspeculation touching Electric Conduction and the nature of Matter.' In\nthis discourse he not only attempts the overthrow of Dalton's Theory\nof Atoms, but also the subversion of all ordinary scientific ideas\nregarding the nature and relations of Matter and Force. He objected\nto the use of the term atom:--'I have not yet found a mind,' he says,\n'that did habitually separate it from its accompanying temptations; and\nthere can be no doubt that the words definite proportions, equivalent,\nprimes, etc., which did and do fully express all the _facts_ of what is\nusually called the atomic theory in chemistry, were dismissed because\nthey were not expressive enough, and did not say all that was in the\nmind of him who used the word atom in their stead,'\" (_Faraday as a\nDiscoverer_, pp. 119-20.)\n\nAnd again:--\"With his usual courage and sincerity he pushes his view\nto its utmost consequences. 'This view of the constitution of matter,'\nhe continues, 'would seem to involve necessarily the conclusion that\nmatter fills all space, or at least all space to which gravitation\nextends; for gravitation is a property of matter dependent on a certain\nforce, and it is this force which constitutes the matter. In that view\nmatter is not merely mutually penetrable; but each atom extends, so to\nsay, throughout the whole of the solar system, yet always retaining\nits own centre of force.'\" Faraday \"compares the interpenetration of\ntwo atoms to the coalescence of two distinct waves, which though for\na moment blended to a single mass, preserve their individuality, and\nafterwards separate.\" (_Ibid._ pp. 123-4 and note.)\n\nThe subject did not easily lose its hold on the philosopher's mind.\n\"At the Institution,\" writes Dr. Bence Jones, \"he gave eight lectures\nafter Easter on the phenomena and philosophy of heat. He ended this\ncourse thus:--'We know nothing about matter but its forces--nothing in\nthe creation but the effect of these forces; further our sensations\nand perceptions are not fitted to carry us; all the rest, which we may\nconceive we know, is only imagination.' He gave two Friday discourses:\nthe first on the nature of matter, the other on recent improvements in\nthe silvering of mirrors.\n\n\"His notes of the first lecture begin thus:--'Speculations dangerous\ntemptations; generally avoid them; but a time to speculate as well\nas to refrain, all depends upon the temper of the mind. I was led to\nconsider the nature of space in relation to electric conduction, and so\nof matter, _i.e._ whether _continuous_ or consisting of _particles with\nintervening space_, according to its supposed constitution. Consider\nthis point, _remarking the assumptions everywhere_.\n\n\"'_Chemical considerations_ abundant, but almost all _assumption_.\nEasy to speak of atomic proportions, multiple proportions, isomeric\nand isomorphic phenomena and compound bases; and to account for\neffects we have only to hang on to assumed atoms the properties or\narrangement of properties assumed to be sufficient for the purpose.\nBut the fundamental and main facts are expressed by the term _definite\nproportion_,--the rest, including the atomic notion, is assumption.\n\n\"'The view that physical chemistry necessarily takes of atoms is now\nvery large and complicated; first many elementary atoms--next compound\nand complicated atoms. System within system, like the starry heavens,\n_may be right_--but may _be all wrong_. Thus see how little of general\ntheory of matter is known as fact, and how _much_ is assumption.\n\n\"'Final brooding impression, that particles are only centres of force;\nthat the force or forces constitute the matter; that therefore there is\nno space between the particles distinct from the particles of matter;\nthat they touch each other just as much in gases as in liquids or\nsolids; and that they are materially penetrable, probably even to their\nvery centres. That, for instance, water is not two particles of oxygen\nside by side, but two spheres of power mutually penetrated, and the\ncentres even coinciding.'\" Bence Jones--Life of Faraday, Vol. II., pp.\n177-78.\n\nThese views (best known as Boscovich's theory), though not generally\nheld in scientific circles, are favoured by Bacon's most able\ncommentator, Robert Leslie Ellis, and are pronounced by Professor\nHuxley a \"tenable hypothesis.\" Mr. Spencer poises the balance as\nfollows:--\"Though the combining weights of the respective elements are\ntermed by chemists their 'equivalents,' for the purpose of avoiding\na questionable assumption, we are unable to think of the combination\nof such definite weights, without supposing it to take place between\ndefinite numbers of definite particles. And thus it would appear that\nthe Newtonian view is at any rate preferable to that of Boscovich. A\ndisciple of Boscovich, however, may reply that his master's theory is\ninvolved in that of Newton; and cannot indeed be escaped. 'What,' he\nmay ask, 'is it that holds together the parts of these ultimate atoms?'\n'A cohesive force,' his opponent must answer. 'And what,' he may\ncontinue, 'is it that holds together the parts of any fragments, into\nwhich, by sufficient force, an ultimate atom might be broken?' Again\nthe answer must be--a cohesive force. 'And what,' he may still ask, 'if\nthe ultimate atom were, as we can imagine it to be, reduced to parts as\nsmall in proportion to it, as it is in proportion to a tangible mass\nof matter--what must give each part the ability to sustain itself,\nand to occupy space?' Still there is no answer but--a cohesive force.\nCarry the process in thought as far as we may, until the extension of\nthe parts is less than can be imagined, we still cannot escape the\nadmission of forces by which the extension is upheld; and we can find\nno limit until we arrive at the conception of centres of force without\nany extension.\" _First Principles_, p. 54.\n\nIt is evident that Faraday was able to think in a manner which has been\noften declared impossible. Mr. Spencer's statement of the counter case\nis alone sufficient to prove that the inquiry is sure to be recurrent.\nWe may add with Dr. Tyndall that facts alone cannot satisfy the mind,\nand that when a law is established, the question \"why\" is inevitable.\nCompare _foot-note_ p. 324 _post_.\n\n[193] A familiar instance of one among these abstract entities may\nconvey to some readers a clearer idea of their nature than many careful\nexplanations. Three balks of timber are lying in our road,--one, a\nvery large and heavy monster, directly across it. Desirous of driving\nby, and being without adequate help to remove an obstacle beyond our\nstrength, we call to mind the following definition. \"The lever is an\ninflexible bar, capable of free motion about a fixed axis, called the\nfulcrum.\" (Newth. _Natural Philosophy_, p. 33.) Acting upon this idea,\nwe place one balk we can manage to move, upon a second which happens\nto lie conveniently, and so roll away the third heavy monster. This\ndone, we replace No. 1 peaceably beside No. 2, and wend on our way\nrejoicing. Now the lever, as defined by Newth, existed ideally in our\nmind, and we realised and used it. Our lever and fulcrum are still\nlying on the road, though they are lever and fulcrum no longer. The\nleverage was an applied mental Form, but we no longer want the Form to\nbe operative,--and along with it the Force has disappeared.\n\n[au] Our knowledge of Matter and of Motion;--our knowledge of their\ncontinuance while our forms and other forms are undergoing change;--all\nwe most _certainly_ know of the material world, resolves itself into\nour knowledge of Force. Thus far Mr. Herbert Spencer is with us, as may\nbe seen from the following paragraphs from his _First Principles_. \"By\nthe indestructibility of Matter, we really mean the indestructibility\nof the _force_ with which Matter affects us. As we become conscious of\nMatter only through that resistance which it opposes to our muscular\nenergy, so do we become conscious of the permanence of Matter only\nthrough the permanence of this resistance; as either immediately or\nmediately proved to us. And this truth is made manifest not only by\nanalysis of the _\u00e0 posteriori_ cognition, but equally so by analysis of\nthe _\u00e0 priori_ one. For that which we cannot conceive to be diminished\nby the continued compression of Matter, is not its occupancy of space,\nbut its ability to resist.\" (p. 179.) \"It remains to be pointed out\nthat the continuity of Motion, as well as the indestructibility of\nMatter, is really known to us in terms of _force_. That a certain\nmanifestation of force remains for ever undiminished, is the ultimate\ncontent of the thought; whether reached _\u00e0 posteriori_ or _\u00e0 priori_.\"\n(p. 182.) And again (pp. 191-2). \"What, in these two foregoing\nchapters, was proved true of Matter and Motion, is, _\u00e0 fortiori_, true\nof the Force out of which our conceptions of Matter and Motion are\nbuilt. Indeed, as we saw, that which is indestructible in matter and\nmotion, is the force they present. And, as we here see, the truth that\nForce is indestructible, is the obverse of the truth that the Unknown\nCause of the changes going on in consciousness is indestructible.\nSo that the persistence of consciousness, constitutes at once our\nimmediate experience of the persistence of Force, and imposes on us the\nnecessity we are under of asserting its persistence.... Consciousness\nwithout this or that particular _form_ is possible; but consciousness\nwithout _contents_ is impossible.\"\n\nWe are also quite at one with Mr. Herbert Spencer as regards an\nassertion made in his _Principles of Psychology_ (I. 161,) and\nrepeated, to shew how anti-materialistic he is, in his last book.\n(_Essays_, III., p. 250.) \"Of the two it seems easier to translate\nso-called Matter into so-called Spirit, than to translate so-called\nSpirit into so-called Matter, which latter is, indeed, wholly\nimpossible.\"\n\nBut though it is true, as he adds, that \"no _translation_ can carry us\nbeyond our symbols,\" it is no less true that we are impelled to inquire\ninto that which underlies them. Mr. Spencer says further (_Psychology_\nI. 162,) \"The conditioned form under which Being is presented in the\nSubject, cannot, any more than the conditioned form under which Being\nis presented in the Object, be the Unconditioned Being common to the\ntwo.\" In this negation we are less at one with him, for, as we firmly\nbelieve, in that conditioned sphere we call our own subjective nature\nthere is a Reality presented to our consciousness by every act of\nVolition which brings us far nearer than any objective or outside form\nof existence can bring us to that Unconditioned Being which is common\nto the two, and infinitely superior to them both.\n\n[194] Spirit of Inductive Philosophy, p. 165.\n\n[195] Ibid. pp. 169-170. \"In the confined and literal notions, often\nignorantly entertained, of the sciences of observation, our conclusions\nmight be supposed restricted to the field of mere sensible experience;\nand in this sense we should fall short of any worthy apprehension\nof the Supreme Intelligence. But the truly inductive philosopher\nextends his contemplation to intellectual conceptions of a higher\nclass, pointing to order and uniformity as constant and universal as\nthe extent of nature itself in space and in time; and in the same\nproportion he recognises harmony and arrangement invested with the\nattributes of universality and eternity, and thus derives his loftier\nideas of the Divine perfections.\"\n\n[196] See Ravaisson (_La Philosophie en France_, p. 82,) for an account\nof Comte's position in this particular. He characterizes it thus: \"Du\npositivisme physique superficiel il est arriv\u00e9 au positivisme moral.\"\n\n[av] Or else as some may prefer to state it, Mind _is_ the intelligible\nlaw. In other words, Law is the manifestation and energizing of the\nMind in Nature, and we recognize mind in the energy of Law. Canon\nMozley spoke as follows in 1872. \"There is a great deal said now about\nMind in Nature, and scientific men talk enthusiastically about Mind;\nthe old notion of chance is obsolete, and in spite of the strength of\na materialist school, there is a tendency to a consensus of scientific\nmen that there is Mind in the universe. Would any one in any public\nmeeting of scientific men dare to stand up and _deny_ that there was\nMind in Nature? It would be thought monstrous. It would be set down as\nthe revival of an old stupidity. It is the only form in which they find\nthey can speak of nature which at all ennobles it or which satisfies\ntheir own idea of the sublimity of nature.\" _The Principle of Causation\nconsidered in opposition to Atheistic Theories_, p. 41.\n\nThe learned writer goes on to connect this admitted idea of Mind with\nthe collateral idea of Design. And this is a most natural sequence of\nthought. But, for reasons already mentioned, the main argument of this\nchapter pursues another track. Mind in Nature being directly intuited,\n(to use an expressive Kantian phrase) we supplement the evidence thus\ngiven by a cross-examination of facts for the purpose of eliciting an\naccount of what manner of Intelligence this Mind in Nature must be.\n\n[aw] \"It is true,\" says Canon Mozley, \"that matter has lately been set\nbefore us as claiming more vicinity to mind than it has been usual to\nassign it; and a scientific man, of the highest genius, has regretted\nthat 'mind and matter have ever been presented to us in the rudest\ncontrast--the one as all noble, the other as all vile.'... Hobbes,\nin the 17th century, anticipated this claim, and laid down 'that all\nmatter as matter is endued not only with figure and a capacity of\nmotion, but also with an actual sense and perception, and wants only\nthe organs and memory of animals to express its sensations,'\" _On\nCausation_, as before, p. 38.\n\nThe doctrine of an inferior and irrational, or as some phrase it \"a\nblind intelligence\" is the topic next discussed with some fulness in\nour text.\n\nThis \"blind intelligence\" makes Nature, so to speak, \"the instinct of\nthe Universe.\" Thence it is \"no long step\" to a belief that the world\nis a living creature, neither are there wanting modern accounts of\nthe principle of Vitality, and its powers of assimilation,--equally\napplicable to the accretive growth of a crystal.\n\nThe renovators of philosophy were (as Mr. Leslie Ellis remarks)\nstrongly inclined to this belief, its typical teacher being Campanella.\nLeibniz points out with his usual energy its affinity with the\nScholastic doctrine of \"substantial forms\"--(a very different\ntheory from Bacon's) \"formas quasdam substantiales ejusmodi sibi\nimaginatus videtur, qu\u00e6 per se sint causa motus in corporibus,\nquemadmodum Scholastici capiunt;\" and proceeds to say, \"ita reditur\nad tot deunculos, quot formas substantiales, et Gentilem prope\npolytheismum.... Quum tamen revera in natura nulla sit sapientia,\nnullus appetitus, ordo vero pulcher ex eo oriatur, quia est horologium\nDei.\" _Leibnitii Opera Philosophica_, Ed. Erdmann, pp. 52-3.\n\n[197] \"Easiest\" is here and elsewhere used to mean that which accounts\nin the most natural and perfect manner alike for a single fact and for\nthe complex whole of facts presented to us. Such an \"easiest account\"\nis the law of Gravitation--it is at once the simplest and the most\ncomplete.\n\n[198] _Fragments of Science_, p. 88.\n\n[199] Struck it so truly that (to borrow Mr. Huxley's expression) a\nsufficient Intelligence might have predicted the Universe. But what an\ninfinitude of knowledge would this \"sufficiency\" seem to presuppose!\n\n[ax] Taking an optical structure of the Eye as a test example, the\nchances of its Evolution _per accidens_ have been calculated by an\neminent mathematician. His results may be seen in the _Additional Note_\nappended to this Chapter. They are extracted from the Hulsean Lectures\nfor 1867.\n\n[ay] For example:--No one holds the doctrine of Natural Selection more\nfirmly than Mr. Wallace;--he is, in fact, known to have anticipated the\nDarwinian theory of Evolution. But he also holds that Natural Selection\ncannot account for certain of the physical peculiarities of Man; much\nless for his consciousness, his language, his moral sense, or his\nVolition.\n\nMr. Wallace maintains likewise that\n\n (1) Atoms are centres of Force.\n\n (2) Force is known to us as Will.\n\n (3) The Will that governs the world is the Will of higher\n intelligences or of one supreme Intelligence.\n\nHe quotes, as representing his own thought, the following lines from an\nAmerican poetess:--\n\n    \"God of the Granite and the Rose!\n      Soul of the Sparrow and the Bee!\n    The mighty tide of Being flows\n      Through countless channels, Lord, from thee.\n    It leaps to life in grass and flowers,\n      Through every grade of being runs,\n    While from Creation's radiant towers\n      Its glory flames in Stars and Suns.\"\n\nTo the above-mentioned points Mr. Wallace adds a spiritualistic belief\nin many sublime intelligences intermediate between the Deity and the\nUniverse. Compare _Natural Selection_, Ed. 2. Essay X. with Notes.\n\n[az] That the perception of fitness, even when of the most exalted\nkind, does not to some thinkers carry with it a perception of Design,\nis plainly manifest from the ensuing paragraph:--\n\n\"The absurdity of the _\u00e0 posteriori_ argument for a God consists in\nthe assumption that what we call order, harmony, and adaptation are\nevidence of design, when it is evident that, _whether there be a God or\nnot, order, harmony, and adaptation must have existed from eternity,\nand are not_ _therefore necessary proof of a designing cause_.\"\n(_American Index_, Jan. 11, 1873.)\n\nIt is to be hoped that the writer of this rather strong statement had\ninsight enough to perceive that these eternal harmonizers of the whole\nUniverse do, in fact, constitute a self-existent Mind.\n\n[ba] With perfect fairness, Professor Huxley admits the force of\nthis distinction. In a paragraph quoted p. 133, he wrote thus:--\"It\nis necessary to remember that there is a wider Teleology, which is\nnot touched by the doctrine of Evolution, but is actually based upon\nthe fundamental proposition of Evolution. That proposition is, that\nthe whole world, living and not living, is the result of the mutual\ninteraction, according to definite laws, of the forces possessed by\nthe molecules of which the primitive nebulosity of the universe was\ncomposed. If this be true, it is no less certain that the existing\nworld lay, potentially, in the cosmic vapour; and that a sufficient\nintelligence could, from a knowledge of the properties of the molecules\nof that vapour, have predicted, say the state of the Fauna of Britain\nin 1869, with as much certainty as one can say what will happen to the\nvapour of the breath in a cold winter's day.\"\n\nIt is curious to compare Mr. Huxley's dictum on the Eye (cited p. 133)\nwith a passage before part-quoted from Mr. Newman. \"In saying that\nlungs _were intended_ to breathe, and eyes to see, we imply an argument\nfrom Fitness to Design, which carries conviction to the overwhelming\nmajority of cultivated as well as uncultivated minds. Yet, in calling\nit an argument, we may seem to appeal to the logical faculty; and\nthis would be an error. No syllogism is pretended, that _proves_ a\nlung to have been made to breathe; but _we see it_ by what some call\nCommon-Sense, and some Intuition. If such a fact stood alone in the\nuniverse, and no other existences spoke of Design, it would probably\nremain a mere enigma to us; but when the whole human world is pervaded\nby similar instances, not to see a Universal Mind in nature appears\nalmost a brutal insensibility; and if any one intelligently professes\nAtheism, the more acute he is, the more distinctly we perceive that he\nis deficient in the Religious Faculty. Just as, if he had no sense of\nBeauty in anything, we should not imagine that we could impart it by\nargument, so neither here.... No stress whatever needs here to be laid\nupon minute anatomy, as, for instance, of the eye: it signifies not,\nwhether we do or do not understand its optical structure as a matter of\nscience. If it had _no_ optical structure at all, if it differed in no\nrespect (that we could discover) from a piece of marble, except that\nit sees, this would not impair the reasons for believing that it _is\nmeant_ to see.\" _The Soul_, pp. 32-3.\n\nThis extract from Mr. Newman raises the question--Is an eminent\nBiologist any better judge on the subject of _Design_, than any other\neminent thinker? Clearly he is a judge of _Fitness_, but that fact is\nadmitted on all sides;--the eyes of animals are practically fit for\nseeing with, and, what is more, they are fitted to the special fields\nof vision useful to their several owners. The first question is, Does\nthe fact of seeing or the fitness to see raise a moral certainty or\nvery strong probability of Design? And should a Biologist rejoin that\nthere exists another account of organic facts and fitnesses probable\nand adequate; next comes the further inquiry, which is the most\nprobable, the most adequate, in a word the easiest? In this connection\nit must likewise be asked with some urgency, what _non_-Biological\nreasons there are for preferring Design? Whether for instance any good\nreasons may be found for believing that there is somewhere subsisting\nin and over the Natural world an Intelligence of such order as to be\ncapable of arranging fitness with a view to the harmony and general\nco-operation of natural Forces?\n\nThe attempt has been made to shew cause on this side in the present\nChapter. Of course, the case for Design must be rendered unanswerable\nif a certitude of Reason, either speculative or practical, or a very\nstrong conclusion of moral argument, or a probability outweighing all\nother probabilities, shall in any way be shewn for accepting the still\nnobler belief in a self-existent Will and Personality. Now this latter\nidea is the subject of our two closing Chapters, and is contemplated\non grounds with which the Biologist or Physicist, qu\u00e2 Biologist or\nPhysicist has no very special concern.\n\nIt seems plain, however, that when a great Biologist is pre-eminently a\nphilosophic thinker (as an author like Mr. Huxley must be acknowledged\nby competent judges)--then he possesses a strong vantage ground, and\nvast opportunities either for good or for evil. And these last six\nwords remind us to add with Mr. Newman that after all _subjective_\nconditions must not be forgotten.\n\nWould not a man without sense of the Beautiful be \"colour-blind\" to\nmany among the harmonies of Nature? And is there not something in the\n\"Religious insight\" Mr. Newman speaks of which seems nothing less than\na gift of vision and faculty divine? Man thus endowed may be in the\nhighest sense Nature's interpreter, when he sees in her moving mirror\nthe reflected lineaments of his own and Nature's God. To such a mind no\nidea can be more sublimely magnificent than the philosophic Teleology\nwhich Mr. Huxley bases on Evolution; it seems to compress into one the\nPast, the Present, and the Future; and to follow with winged thought\nthat glance of an omniscient Creator which tongues of men and angels\nmust for ever fail to describe.\n\nWe ought to add that the principle of Evolution has been defined in\nmore than one way. Some definitions would exclude the wide Teleologic\nview. What is here meant might (to borrow Mr. Spencer's remark) be more\njustly characterized as \"INVOLUTION.\"\n\n[200] Comparing the life of Humanity with the life of an individual,\nand arguing for an all-pervading optimism as the general Law in both,\nLittr\u00e9 observes, \"Pas plus dans un cas que dans l'autre, ne sont\n\u00e9limin\u00e9es? _les maladies, les perturbations, les d\u00e9rangements, en un\nmot, tous les accidents qui interviennent dans le fonctionnement de\nchaque loi_, et qui sont d'autant plus fr\u00e9quents et plus graves que\nla loi dont il s'agit gouverne des rapports plus compliqu\u00e9s et plus\n\u00e9lev\u00e9s.\" _Paroles de Philosophie Positive_, p. 26. The italics are our\nown.\n\n[201] It is a curious problem to put testimony in the scale against\nalleged necessities, regarding the course of Nature. A certain Eastern\nprince had never seen ice--and obstinately rejected the idea of its\npossible existence. Was he wise or unwise in his disbelief? Wise, if\nwe make the rule of actual experience our canon;--unwise if we admit\nthe rule of modification by unseen possibilities; and still more,\nif we allow that a small amount of _affirmative_ testimony ought\nin reason to outweigh a large amount of _negative_ presupposition,\nor difficulty. A curious instance of this last rule is the natural\nhistory of the duck-billed platypus (the ornithorynchus), rightly\ncalled \"_paradoxus_.\" The contradictory appearance of its organs\ncreated a world of scepticism, when its history was first reported to\nNaturalists. It was a question of improbability versus testimony;--and,\nto use the established phrase, \"every school boy\" now knows that\nTestimony was right. Compare Note (_c_) p. 264, _ante_.\n\n[bb] How Bacon can have been pictured by his admirers as neither ideal,\nnor metaphysical, seems to be one of those unintelligible mysteries\nof idolatry which idol-worshippers cannot themselves explain. How\nimpossible it is on such a supposition to reconcile Bacon with himself\nwill appear evident to any informed reader of Mr. Ellis's Preface to\nthe Philosophical Works.\n\nBacon's tribute to Plato was just, as well as discriminating, and to\nour purpose is most appropriate. He says (_De Augmentis_, III. 4)\n\"For Metaphysic, I have already assigned to it the inquiry of Formal\nand Final Causes; which assignation, as far as it relates to Forms,\nmay seem nugatory; because of a received and inveterate opinion that\nthe Essential Forms or true differences of things cannot by any human\ndiligence be found out; an opinion which in the meantime implies and\nadmits that the invention of Forms is of all parts of knowledge the\nworthiest to be sought, if it be possible to be found. And as for the\npossibility of finding it, they are ill discoverers who think there is\nno land where they can see nothing but sea. But it is manifest that\nPlato, a man of sublime wit (and one that surveyed all things as from\na lofty cliff), did in his doctrine concerning Ideas descry that Forms\nwere the true object of knowledge; howsoever he lost the fruit of this\nmost true opinion by considering and trying to apprehend Forms as\nabsolutely abstracted from matter.\" This last path we have endeavoured\nto avoid; and have ourselves elected to follow the Baconian precept,\nand to treat the Law or Form of Production not logically, but as\nseen in operation, and existent _in rerum natur\u00e2_; not _in ordine ad\nhominem_ but _in ordine ad Universum_.\n\nWhat Bacon himself expected from the investigation, he states plainly\nenough in continuation. \"If we fix our eyes diligently seriously and\nsincerely upon action and use, it will not be difficult to discern and\nunderstand what those Forms are the knowledge whereof may wonderfully\nenrich and benefit the condition of men.... This part of Metaphysic I\nfind deficient; whereat I marvel not, because I hold it not possible\nthat the Forms of things can be invented by that course of invention\nhitherto used; the root of the evil, as of all others, being this: that\nmen have used to sever and withdraw their thoughts too soon and too far\nfrom experience and particulars, and have given themselves wholly up to\ntheir own meditation and arguments.\n\n\"But the use of this part of Metaphysic, which I reckon amongst the\ndeficient, is of the rest the most excellent in two respects; the\none, because it is the duty and virtue of all knowledge to abridge\nthe circuits and long ways of experience (as much as truth will\npermit), and to remedy the ancient complaint that 'life is short and\nart is long.'... For God is holy in the multitude of his works, holy\nin the order or connexion of them, and holy in the union of them.\nAnd therefore the speculation was excellent in Parmenides and Plato\n(although in them it was but a bare speculation), 'that all things by\na certain scale ascend to unity.'\" (_Ibid._ Ellis and Spedding, IV.\n360-362.)\n\n[bc] The Hulsean Lecturer before alluded to states this point with most\ndistinct emphasis. Speaking of the Eye as an optical instrument, he\nsays, \"Here are _four_ conditions of things each utterly _independent_\nof the others, viz. the nerve, then its non-reflecting coating, then\na transparent medium investing it, then a most remarkable _ether_\nsurrounding the whole, the concurrence of all four being essential\nto the production of vision, nevertheless we are to believe that all\nthese adjustments and adaptations are accidentally made, retained\nand handed down by inheritance. If there be not evidence here of the\nselecting, arranging, controlling power of _mind_, will, forethought,\ncontrivance, then I feel that I have no evidence for the existence of\nthe individuality of my own being.\" _Analogies_, _etc._, p. 124.\n\n[202] There is perhaps no familiar tribe in which the wonders of\nthis mechanical arrangement, can be more easily studied than in the\nvenerable family of owls.\n\n[203] The stalk-eyed Crustacea are known to most readers through the\nfascinating volume of Mr. Bell.\n\n[204] _De Anima_, III. 1, 4. _Hist. Animal._, I. 9, IV. 8. The\nstructural eye is reduced to an ocellus.\n\n[205] M. Le Court: see Geoffrey St. Hilaire, _Cours d'Histoire\nNaturelle, des Mammif\u00e8res_.\n\n[206] One is glad of this result for Shakespeare's sake, as well as\nAristotle's; though a Warwickshire man might have been expected to know\nthe exact truth so far as his county is concerned; which Shakespeare\ndid not:--\n\n              \"The blind mole casts\n    Copp'd hills towards heaven.\" (_Pericles_, I. 1.)\n\n      \"Pray you tread softly that the blind mole may not\n    Hear a footfall.\" (_Tempest_, IV. 1.)\n\n\n[207] The Proteus Anguinus has been rendered illustrious by Sir H.\nDavy's _Consolations in Travel_. Since his time, living specimens have\nbeen kept in England.\n\n[208] The English reader will be charmed with the account of him in\nBell's _British Quadrupeds_.\n\n[209] \"In the organ of hearing in man we have first of all the external\norifice of the ear, which is closed at the bottom by the circular\ntympanic membrane. Behind that membrane is the cavity called the drum\nof the ear, this cavity being separated from the space between it\nand the brain by a bony partition, in which there are two orifices,\nthe one round and the other oval. These orifices are also closed by\nfine membranes. Across the cavity of the drum stretches a series of\nfour little bones: the first, called the _hammer_, is attached to the\ntympanic membrane; the second, called the _anvil_, is connected by a\njoint with the hammer; a third little round bone connects the anvil\nwith the _stirrup bone_, which has its oval base planted against the\nmembrane of the oval orifice above referred to. The base of the stirrup\nbone abuts against this membrane, almost covering it, and leaving but\na narrow rim of the membrane surrounding the bone. Behind the bony\npartition, and between it and the brain, we have the extraordinary\norgan called the _labyrinth_, which is filled with water, and over the\nlining membrane of which, the terminal fibres of the auditory nerve are\ndistributed. When the tympanic membrane receives a shock, that shock\nis transmitted through the series of bones above referred to, and is\nconcentrated on the membrane against which the base of the stirrup\nbone is planted. That membrane transfers the shock to the water of the\nlabyrinth, which, in its turn, transfers it to the nerves.\n\n\"The transmission, however, is not direct. At a certain place within\nthe labyrinth exceedingly fine elastic bristles, terminating in sharp\npoints, grow up between the terminal nerve fibres. These bristles,\ndiscovered by Max Schultze, are eminently calculated to sympathise with\nthose vibrations of the water which correspond to their proper periods.\nThrown thus into vibration, the bristles stir the nerve fibres which\nlie between their roots, and excite audition. At another place in the\nlabyrinth we have little crystalline particles called _otolithes_--the\nH\u00f6rsteine of the Germans--embedded among the nervous filaments, and\nwhich, when they vibrate, exert an intermittent pressure upon the\nadjacent nerve fibres, thus exciting audition. The otolithes probably\nsubserve a different purpose from that fulfilled by the bristles of\nSchultze. They are fitted, by their weight, to accept and prolong\nthe vibrations of evanescent sounds, which might otherwise escape\nattention. The bristles of Schultze, on the contrary, because of their\nextreme lightness, would instantly yield up an evanescent motion,\nwhile they are eminently fitted for the transmission of continuous\nvibrations. Finally, there is in the labyrinth a wonderful organ,\ndiscovered by the Marchese Corti, which is to all appearance a musical\ninstrument, with its chords so stretched as to accept vibrations\nof different periods, and transmit them to the nerve filaments\nwhich traverse the organ. Within the ears of men, and without their\nknowledge or contrivance, this lute of 3,000 strings has existed for\nages, accepting the music of the outer world, and rendering it fit\nfor reception by the brain. Each musical tremor which falls upon this\norgan selects from its tensioned fibres the one appropriate to its own\npitch, and throws that fibre into unisonant vibration. And thus, no\nmatter how complicated the motion of the external air may be, those\nmicroscopic strings can analyse it and reveal the constituents of which\nit is composed.\" Tyndall. _On Sound_, pp. 323-4 and 5. We may add that\nthe \"fine elastic bristles,\" mentioned by Dr. Tyndall, are known to be\nprolongations of the free ends of the epithelial cells. The _other_\nends of these cells--(_i.e._ the deep or attached ends) are delicately\nramified, and are said to be in connection with slender nerve-fibrils.\n\n[210] _E.g._, Coleridge. \"I have at this moment before me, in the\nflowery meadow, on which my eye is now reposing, one of its most\nsoothing chapters, in which there is no lamenting word, no one\ncharacter of guilt or anguish. For never can I look and meditate on\nthe vegetable creation without a feeling similar to that with which we\ngaze at a beautiful infant that has fed itself asleep at its mother's\nbosom, and smiles in its strange dream of obscure yet happy sensations.\nThe same tender and genial pleasure takes possession of me, and this\npleasure is checked and drawn inward by the like aching melancholy,\nby the same whispered remonstrance, and made restless by a similar\nimpulse of aspiration. It seems as if the soul said to herself: From\nthis state hast _thou_ fallen! Such shouldst thou still become, thyself\nall permeable to a holier power! thyself at once hidden and glorified\nby its own transparency, as the accidental and dividuous in this quiet\nand harmonious object is subjected to the life and light of nature;\nto that life and light of nature, I say, which shines in every plant\nand flower, even as the transmitted power, love and wisdom of God over\nall fills, and shines through, nature! But what the plant is, by an\nact not its own and unconsciously--_that_ must thou make thyself to\n_become_--must by prayer and by a watchful and unresisting spirit, join\nat least with the preventive and assisting grace to make thyself, in\nthat light of conscience which inflameth not, and with that knowledge\nwhich puffeth not up!\" _Statesman's Manual._ Appendix B. pp. 267, 8.\nEd. 1839.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nCAUSATION.\n\n\n    \"Chidhar, the Prophet ever-young\n    Thus loosed the bridle of his tongue.\n\n    \"I journeyed by a goodly Town,\n    Beset with many a garden fair,\n    And asked of one who gathered down\n    Large fruit, 'how long the Town was there\n        He spoke, nor chose his hand to stay,\n        'The town has stood for many a day,\n        And will be here for ever and aye.'\n\n    \"A thousand years passed by and then\n    I went the self-same road again.\n\n    \"No vestige of that Town I traced,--\n    But one poor swain his horn employed,--\n    His sheep unconscious browsed and grazed,\n    I asked 'when was that Town destroyed?'\n        He spoke, nor would his horn lay by,\n        'One thing may grow and another die,\n        But I know nothing of Towns--not I.'\n\n    \"A thousand years went on and then\n    I passed the self-same place again.\n\n    \"There in the deep of waters cast\n    His nets one lonely fisherman,\n    And as he drew them up at last\n    I asked him 'how that Lake began?'\n        He looked at me and laughed to say,\n        'The waters spring for ever and aye,\n        And fish is plenty every day.'\n\n    \"A thousand years passed by and then\n    I went the self-same road again.\n\n    \"I found a country wild and rude,\n    And, axe in hand, beside a tree,\n    The Hermit of that Solitude,--\n    I asked 'how old that Wood might be?'\n        He spoke, 'I count not time at all,\n        A tree may rise, a tree may fall,\n        The Forest overlives us all,'\n\n    \"A thousand years went on and then\n    I passed the self-same place again.\n\n    \"And there a glorious City stood,\n    And 'mid tumultuous market-cry,\n    I asked 'Where rose the Town? where Wood\n    Pasture and Lake forgotten lie?'\n        They heard me not, and little blame,--\n        For them the world is as it came,\n        And all things must be still the same.\n\n    \"A thousand years shall pass, and then\n    I mean to try that road again.\"\n\n    Lord Houghton, _after R\u00fcckert_.\n\n \"What a modern talks of by the name, Forces of Nature, Laws of Nature;\n and does not figure as a divine thing; not even as one thing at all,\n but as a set of things, undivine enough,--saleable, curious, good for\n propelling steam-ships! With our Sciences and Cyclop\u00e6dias, we are apt\n to forget the _divineness_, in those laboratories of ours. We ought\n not to forget it! That once well forgotten, I know not what else were\n worth remembering.\"--Carlyle. _Heroes_.\n\n \"Two worlds, the one intellectual, the other sensual, were equally\n given to us from the beginning, and all attempts to deduce them from\n one principle (except the Deity) have failed.\"--Von Feuchtersleben.\n\n    \"What am I? how produced? and for what end?\n    Whence drew I being? to what period tend?\n    Am I th' abandon'd orphan of blind chance?\n    Dropped by wild atoms in disorder'd dance?\n    Or from an endless chain of causes wrought,\n    And of unthinking substance, born with thought?\n    By motion which began without a Cause,\n    Supremely wise, without design or laws.\"--Arbuthnot.\n\n    \"Pouvoir c'est vouloir.\"--_Guesses at Truth._\n\n    \"If only once weird Time had rent asunder\n      The curtain of the Clouds, and shown us Night\n      Climbing into the awful Infinite\n    Those stairs whose steps are worlds, above and under,\n    Glory on glory, wonder upon wonder!...\n\n    \"Ah! sure the heart of Man, too strongly tried\n      By Godlike Presences so vast and fair,\n      Withering with dread, or sick with love's despair,\n    Had wept for ever, and to Heaven cried,\n    Or struck with lightnings of delight had died!\n\n    \"But he, though heir of Immortality,\n      With mortal dust too feeble for the sight,\n      Draws thro' a veil God's overwhelming light;\n    Use arms the Soul--anon there moveth by\n    A more majestic Angel--and we die!\"\n\n    Frederick Tennyson.\n\n\nSYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER VI.\n\n The two last Chapters are intended to be read consecutively, but are\n formally separated in order to mark the transition of Argument. If\n this is borne in mind, and the line of thought pursued continuously,\n there will appear to be little need for further elucidation.\n\n The main object of the present Chapter is to distinguish the physical\n chain of Sequency from Causation properly so termed. In other words to\n divide the World, as we see it, into two spheres; the Mechanical and\n the Personal.\n\n The former is characterized by invariable Sequency. The latter by\n Causation, and by causal interference with the mechanical chain of\n antecedent and consequent.\n\n Inferences are drawn from these contrasted facts.\n\n\n _Analysis._--Causation not explained by any of the empirical sciences.\n Time accounts for nothing. Explicit statements of scientific men on\n the subject. \"Inquire elsewhere.\" This is one good reason for the\n study of Natural Theology.\n\n Only one kind of true Cause known to us by Experience. Distinction\n between a true Cause and the invariable antecedent of an invariable\n consequent. Antecedent enters Chain of natural sequency; Cause does\n not. Cause must account for the several links of Chain, for the\n connection between those links, and for the entire Chain considered\n as a Whole and Unity in Nature. This position illustrated and\n investigated. How grasped by the young mind. Its verification.\n\n Known facts of Causation result in the Unknowable; a condition which\n attaches to the most certain of all truths. Personality a case in\n point. Another case that of alterations caused by Volition in chains\n of Natural Sequency. Common-sense allowances made for this last fact.\n\n Application _\u00e0 fortiori_ to the Divine Personality. Presumption for\n miracles; its nature and limits. Intervention does not destroy Order\n and Unity. Hence we distinguish two possible kinds of Evidence, from,--\n\n 1. General Order of World.\n\n 2. Occasional variation.\n\n Both leading up to a Supreme causal Personality.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nCAUSATION.\n\n\nThis sixth Chapter occupies a totally different sphere of Thought from\nthe one preceding it. Instead of examining the world as it now is, we\nshall inquire what its present existence necessarily presupposes. Time,\nin the ordinary meaning of the word, is no factor in our calculation.\nWe have to deal with Time's antecedents.\n\nThese words sound like a long farewell to our companion and\nauxiliary,--Natural Science! Geology, Pal\u00e6ontology, Astronomy, are\nunanimous in telling us of periods immeasurably remote. But, they are\nall silent on two more distant and profound subjects--a Beginning\nand an Eternity. In the world best known to us, vast cycles--each\ncomprehending many ages of life--- point back to preceding cycles made\nup of ages more numerous still, during which the world was absolutely\nvoid of life. Upon that prim\u00e6val fabric, are graved long records of\nchanges beyond the reach of Thought. A single epoch,--the era when our\nglobe, an incandescent mass of matter, was cooling in its flight,--is\nalone sufficient to exhaust all our imaginative powers. Did water\nfirst surround the glowing orb as a heated vapour? Did clouds first\ndescend upon it like a fiery rain-storm? Suppose some sentient creature\nfloating through ether to look upon the unformed world,--how wild, how\nweird must have been the spectacle! How different from what earth and\nocean may appear to any similar Intelligence now.\n\nScience discoursing upon such topics is more poetical than the most\nsublime poetry. And the science that does speak of them is the widest\nof all sciences, After certain cycles of ages, the Biologist hands us\nover to the Mineralogist and the Chemist. After certain other cycles,\nwe give up those guides in turn; and gauge nature by measuring mass,\nspeed, force, comparing our own orb with kindred orbs, and trying to\ncollect what the comparison can say respecting the earliest conditions\nof the Universe. But, all this is no answer to our proposed question\nconcerning Time's antecedents. \"The territory of physics\" says a\nwell-known physicist, \"is wide, but it has its limits from which we\nlook with vacant gaze into the region beyond.\"[211] And these words\nare evidently true. Time serves, in this respect, as the index of our\nincapacity. We travel back from the period of Man to the period of a\nferny coal field, a trilobite or an Eozoon, and from thence to the\nperiod when nebulous light-masses shone out through illimitable space.\nNo doubt, when we have learned to contemplate such vapoury states\nof attenuated matter, we have learned a great deal. Modern analysis\nfinds in them the elementary constituents of our own planetary system;\nthe same elements which glow with greater apparent brilliancy in our\nSun. But this is not all. To the sober eye of science, those fires,\nwhich burned before stars were kindled, display in their splendours\nmaterials entering into the composition of our transitory frames;\nmaterials required continually by our bodies and by our productive\narts. We live, if modern science may be trusted, by the assimilation of\nelements now shining in the celestial sphere; elements which glittered\nthere through long cycles of ages before our Earth was. And we employ\nthe same elements in the common industries of civilisation.[212] This\nbewildering thought seems to link us with that Sun, which is the glory\nof our day, with those wandering lamps which make night beautiful; and\nwith all the hosts of heaven, which have always fascinated the upward\ngaze of man, and have sometimes won his heart to worship them.\n\nThe more overwhelming these thoughts appear, the grander is the\nemphasis of our yet unanswered question. We have seen that we are able\nto travel backwards--not in fancy, but in reason--from era to era,\nhowever incalculable the measurement of each era may be; and, when\nour travels have reached their utmost goal, we find the marvellous\nContinuity of Nature still unbroken. And this very fact, is, in itself,\na sufficient proof that we have not approached Time's antecedents.\nWhat we have really done, is to carry the Present with us into an\nimmeasurably distant Past. We know not yet what is presupposed by\nboth,--we cannot say what went before them.\n\nIt is _very_ important for us to be thoroughly clear upon the result.\nFor there is a sort of unreflecting idea afloat, that if vast periods\nof Time are conceived, the whole Universe is conceived also. All seems\nexplained, since everything may come to pass in Time! So it may, in\n_one_ sense. Time gives opportunity; but then there must be a moving\npower[213] to work _in_ the opportunity. Let it therefore be distinctly\nborne in mind, that Time causes nothing. To dispense with a spring of\naction, is to imagine that Time will stop the river's flow, or that the\nriver will stop without a cause in time:--\n\n    \"Rusticus expectat, dum defluat amnis; at ille\n    Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis \u00e6vum.\"\n\nIn reality, Time accounts neither for good nor for evil, neither for\nthe end nor yet for the beginning of any single work.\n\nAnd the same is true respecting any chain, however long, made up of\nantecedents and consequents, however numerous. We see in them movements\npropagating movements; but then we are obliged to ask, what moved the\nfirst of them? The reader may remember Professor Huxley's picture of\na cosmic vapour, from a knowledge of which a sufficient Intelligence\nmight have predicted our present world. Looking further, we find this\ncosmic vapour to be composed (as he says) of molecules possessing\nforces or properties; in other words, what he really described was a\npotential Universe; not a Cause, but an already caused production.\nWhat, then, caused it?\n\nIt was not the Professor's business,--nor is it the business of any\nPhysiologist or of any Physicist, to explain what lies beyond the\nterritories of his science. Consequently he does _not_ account for the\nexistence of this \"primitive nebulosity.\" The \"sufficient Intelligence\"\nis only spoken of a possible interpreter or prophet. And Professor\nHuxley is right and wise in his reticence.\n\nProfessor Tyndall is equally wise and right in telling us that \"Science\nknows much of this intermediate phase of things that we call nature,\nof which it is the product; but science knows nothing of the origin or\ndestiny of nature.\"[214]\n\nThere is always a rightness and wisdom in stating a limit, and an\nissue, _distinctly_. No one endowed with clearness of vision, will\nthink the Universe as likely to be adequately accounted for by an\neternal nebula, as by an eternity of Mind. No one will exactly state\nto himself, the meaning of such words as Chance, Time, Law, and others\nof a like description; and, with those meanings _in remembrance_,\npronounce that any or all of them can explain the origin of anything.\nBut by popular lecturers and article-makers, immeasurable series of\nconditions are sometimes mentioned in a manner which almost implies\nthat, because immeasurable, the speaker or writer supposes that such\nconditions may possibly be creative.\n\nAny reader of current literature will scarcely need reminding, that\nmost modern _savants_ usually acquiesce in, and feel burdened by, a\nsense of \"the Inscrutable.\" And therefore, when summing up the results\nof scientific truth, they honestly and consistently reduce their\ndisciples to an _alternative_,--an alternative of which no disciple of\nany special science ought reasonably to complain. Choose, they tell\nhim, between confessing, \"here is the Incomprehensible--here I rest;\"\nor, if you please, endeavouring to \"find other means of knowledge,\nwhich we do _not_ pretend to furnish.\" This is no more than to say, and\nsay fairly, \"Be satisfied with such information as we can give,--or,\nif you please, inquire elsewhere.\" And this seems reasonable; for\nwho would assert that a Professor of Poetry ought to give competent\ninstruction in the Calculus?\n\nWe may assume that every student of Natural Theology has made up his\nmind to \"inquire elsewhere.\" And it is the part of an earnest man so\nto do. Were not the Future linked to the Present, we all might feel\nless earnest, less persevering, less anxious for inquiry. Yet, if\nthere be a Future beyond our Present, we at once perceive a weight of\nreason beyond all powers of estimate, _why_ such a connecting chain\nmust certainly exist. All our experience, every argument from analogy,\nand all morality, fall into one and the same scale. But of this, more\nhereafter. There is no doubt that our wisdom and our duty coincide with\nour natural instincts, in bringing us to this resolution. We may not\nbe able to learn _all_ we could wish of that Future which follows our\npresent; but what we can truly learn is to us a treasure beyond price.\nLet us, therefore, proceed as fellow-pilgrims in the search.\n\nIt is an undeniable fact--one amongst the hard and actual facts which\nlife teaches--that, in the whole of our experience, we never know of\nmore than one kind of cause,--a cause, that is, in the true sense\nof _originating_ any event or series of events. Nothing can be more\ncertain as respects our knowledge of the material world. From this\npoint of view, Sir J. Herschel describes Brown's book on \"Cause and\nEffect\" as \"a work of great acuteness and subtlety of reasoning on\nsome points, but in which the whole train of argument is vitiated\nby one enormous oversight; the omission, namely, of a _distinct and\nimmediate personal consciousness of causation_ in his enumeration of\nthat _sequence of events_, by which the volition of the mind is made to\nterminate in the motion of material objects. I mean the consciousness\nof _effort_, accompanied with _intention thereby_ to accomplish an\nend, as a thing entirely distinct from mere _desire_ or _volition_ on\nthe one hand, and from mere spasmodic contraction of muscles on the\nother.\"[215]\n\nThis causation we experience continually. A heavy stone falls from\na wall, and kills a man. No one threw it. We say it fell--or, as a\nphysicist might express it, obeyed the law of gravitation. But we may\nremember that from the tower of Thebez \"a certain woman cast a piece\nof a millstone upon Abimelech's head and all to break his scull.\" We\nform quite a different opinion of this event. We say, here is a case\nin which \"the volition of the mind is made to terminate in the motion\nof a material object.\" Some might accuse, others excuse, the woman of\nThebez; but all would argue that she caused the death of Abimelech.\n\nYour boy wants to beat a chair which has fallen upon him; you tell him\nwhy he must not, and all you say is sound philosophy. He also wants to\nkill his cat for devouring his canary bird; and again you philosophize\ncorrectly. But, suppose your young philosopher for his own pleasure\nwrings his canary bird's neck? The chair fell by mechanical law--the\ncat obeyed the law of her hungry instinct--but your boy is culpable. He\nwas the true cause of his own cruel act,--in a word he was responsible.\nAnd this same truth of Causation, involved in Responsibility, and\nconstituting one of its necessary factors, is like Mind in Mr. Mill,--a\ntruth which we _must_ accept--inexplicable, but unquestionably real.\nWe _know_ that Will is a Cause,--and we do _not_ actually know of\nany other cause in the wide Universe. The fact comes home to us in a\nvariety of ways. Was Thurtell the cause or the physical antecedent of\nWeare's death? If not the cause, we ought never to think him, or any\nmurderer, slaver, torturer, or tyrant, at all in the wrong; neither can\nwe hold them in any manner responsible.\n\nLet the reader put this case to himself in as many different shapes as\nhe can. The result will always come to the same issue. We may suppose\na Nebula, Law, Force, so arranged as to be the physical antecedent of\na world. And nothing can be more marvellous than the idea of such an\narrangement! But we cannot imagine any existence really causing an\neffect, save one,--a Will. Therefore, if we wish to go beyond Nebula,\nLaw, or Force, which are merely physical antecedents,--and ask what\ncaused one or all of them, we are obliged (so far as we are disciples\nof experience) to say their Cause was a Will. And when we say this, we\nallege _a sufficient reason_.\n\nA few paragraphs back, we availed ourselves of the authoritative\nverdict pronounced by scientific thinkers, on the question of what is,\nand what is not, from their point of view, knowable. And we saw _where_\nphysics terminated,--that is, in a _Nebula_. This is their _limit_.\n\nYet, there is nothing to hinder a physicist from becoming also a\nNatural Theologian. It is not every man who will rest in a negative\nconclusion. Professor Baden Powell was among the malcontents in this\nrespect; and we desire now to quote from his writings some passages\nreferred to in the argument of a former Chapter.\n\nBut before doing so, it would be unfair to conceal that a tribute of\ngratitude appears due to writers who mark the boundary of their own\nthought, however little we ourselves desire to stay acquiescently\nwithin its limitations. There is honesty in their act;--there is an\nincitement for other men to try out their lines of thinking also.\nFinally, all such writers are unexceptionable witnesses to the interest\nand reality belonging to a separate science of Natural Theology. In\nall these respects, they occupy a totally different position from\nthe indifferentist or sneering sceptic; and it would be injustice\nto confound such broad distinctions of moral aspect. With this\nacknowledgment let us return to Baden Powell.\n\nIn his \"Connexion of Natural and Divine Truth\"[216] he writes thus:--\n\n \"The study of _physical causes_ (understood _in the simple meaning_\n which we have before endeavoured to fix,) while it supplies the\n unassailable evidence of design and adjustment, as unavoidably\n carries us thence onward to the idea of an Intelligence from which\n that design emanated, and of an agency by which that adjustment\n was produced. It brings us, in a word, to recognise an influence\n of another kind, of an order _different from_, and far above that\n of _physical causes_ or material action:--to acknowledge a sublime\n _moral cause_, the universally operating source of creative power and\n providential wisdom.[bd]... We have already noticed, in other cases,\n the ambiguities arising from the diversity of meaning attached to the\n same term \"cause.\" Here, then, it becomes more peculiarly necessary if\n we adopt the popular expression, \"the First Cause,\" to recur carefully\n to the distinction, if we would preserve any clearness of reasoning.\n\n \"We refer to senses of the term absolutely distinct _in kind_. Nor\n is it a term of mere verbal difference. It is of importance, whether\n in guarding against fallacies in evidence or in answering the cavils\n of scepticism.... When we ascend to the contemplation of creative\n intelligence, the distinction is not between a prior and a subsequent\n train of material action, but between _physical order_ and _moral\n volition_. It will thus be apparent that the metaphor so often used\n of the _chain_ of natural causes _whose last and highest link_ is its\n immediate connexion with the Deity;--the very phrase of a succession\n of _secondary_ causes traced up to a _first cause_,--and the like, (so\n commonly employed,) are founded on a totally mistaken analogy.\n\n \"If we retain such metaphorical language at all, it would be a more\n just mode of speaking to describe the Deity as the Divine artificer\n of the whole chain,--not to connect Him with its links;--to represent\n the secondary causes as combined into joint operation by His power and\n will,--but not to make Him one of them.\" And again;--\"If we require\n the aid of metaphor in attempting to give utterance to those vast\n conceptions with which the mind is overpowered, instead of speaking of\n the first and secondary links in a chain of causation, and the like,\n let us rather recur to the analogy of the _arch_ (before introduced,)\n and we shall be adopting at once a more just and expressive figure,\n and shall here run no risk of speaking as if we confounded the stones\n with the builder,--their mutually supporting force with the skill of\n the architect who adjusted them.\"[217]\n\nWhat Baden Powell called \"physical causation,\" is now more commonly\nknown as invariable antecedency, or invariable succession. Antecedents\nand consequents are phenomena of the natural world,--and the connection\nbetween them is their _Law_.\n\nNow, suppose we take the Alphabet to represent a series of these\nantecedents and consequents, the latter invariably following the\nformer; it does not, (as far as argument goes,) in the least\nsignify what the series really is, any more than when we calculate\nalgebraically. But to make things plain, let the Alphabet represent\n26 cycles of succession; each cycle containing as many millions of\nyears, or ages, as you choose to grant for the duration of the Natural\nUniverse. We may state the problem thus,--the _law_ of succession being\nassumed in our series as constant.\n\nIf we have Z, there certainly must have been Y, and _conversely_;--\n\nIf there were no Y, there cannot possibly be Z. We go on,--\n\nIf Y, then certainly X;\n\nIf no X, then Y is impossible.\n\nAs we know Z in fact, we get back to Y; and, as we find Y, we\nretrogress to X.\n\nAnd the retrogression continues, say till we reach B,--\n\nIf B, certainly A;\n\nIf no A, then B is impossible.\n\nBut, what are we to say of A?\n\nIf A then certainly--_what_?\n\nIf no _what_?--then A is impossible.\n\nIt does not signify how far the chain of physical law may extend.\nFrom its very essence and definition, you must arrive finally at a\nfirst link. Or, in other words, the Continuity of Nature may go back\nthrough Time immeasurable,--Time will after all lead you to Time's\nantecedents. And when you have arrived at your first link, and inquire\n_what_ must necessarily have preceded Time, it is well to consider the\n_sort_ of account which alone you can accept, _because_ it alone will\n_sufficiently_ satisfy your reason.\n\nYou want, then, something which properly accounts first for A; _next_\nfor the link between A and B; and _thirdly_, by consequence, for the\nwhole Alphabet.\n\nIf, with this statement in mind, the reader turns back to the extracts\nmade from Powell, he will see the force of several points strongly\nput by the Professor. He will see, for example, how inevitably\n_physical_ causation carries us back to _another_, and very _diverse_\nCausation,--diverse in _kind_--not simply different in degree. Also,\nhow the idea of Cause in this latter sense, takes us quite _out_ of the\nphysical nexus. And, further, that the only admissible Conception of\na First Universal Cause, must be a conception of something which will\nnot only bring about A, but likewise _account_ for the entire series,\nlinked together and consecutive, into one resulting _Whole_. For the\nWhole itself; in brief for the Many and the One.\n\nWe have now to ask further, what Facts can tell us respecting these two\nkinds of Causation. And let us again employ our letters, but rather in\na different way.\n\nSuppose P stands for a fact, which may also be described as a natural\nphenomenon. To account for P we go back to O, retrogress to N, M, and\nso on, as shewn already.\n\nAgain, suppose another fact which cannot be described as a natural\nphenomenon. Let us try whether P may, with equal propriety, stand for a\nhuman production or performance. That is--whether, instead of being a\nmere _phenomenal_ fact, it may also be spoken of as an _act_.\n\nWe want then to account for P, _thus_ considered. A striking\ncircumstance appears at once evident, that to find the \"_why_\" of human\nactivity we do not look to any antecedent;--we look to a _consequent_,\nor a series of consequences. The question we ask is,--with what _view_\nP became an act? In other words, we try to account for P, _not_ by _O_,\n_N_, _M_, etc., but by _Q_, _R_, _S_, etc. For example: let P represent\na murder. The crime was done for the sake of money, and for things\nwhich money will purchase; that is, the _consequents_,--_Q_, _R_, _S_,\nand so on, forming a series designed;--gains and purposes, long or\nshort. But, no one would say that _another_ series _foregoing_ (O, N,\nM) _necessitated the act_;--that they were the _certain antecedents\nof a necessary consequent_ (P) _the murder_. If it were so, we should\nhave to congratulate the murderer for having been _forced_ into so\nprofitable a performance, and we should also have to leave him in the\npeaceable enjoyment of his profits.\n\nActs, therefore,--or _volitional_ facts--move _forwards_ through\na series of _consequents_; while phenomena--that is, _physical_\nfacts--run backwards through a series of _antecedents_.\n\nIf pressed to find a Cause for an act, we are never in a position to\nsay,--\n\nIf P, then certainly O;\n\nIf no O, then P is impossible.\n\nWe say, on the contrary, that the _Cause_ of the act was\n_Volitional_,--that is, it was done by an _agent or person acting_. And\nfurther, that the _consequents_ (Q, R, S, etc.) represent the _purpose_\nof the actor or agent, and that he is responsible for having adopted\nthem as his prevalent motives or inducements.\n\nBut from these necessities of thought which hold alike as abstract\ntruths, and in practical experience, several inferences follow:--\n\nA volitional cause or agent, may stand before a series of\nconsequents;--but cannot be ranged after such a series.\n\nOur series represented by the Alphabet, was taken to be a series of\n_invariable sequency_. That is, each factor (letter) presupposed\nantecedents, which _necessitated_ every factor in succession. Therefore\nwe cannot represent any agent or volitional Cause, by an element (or\nletter) of that series at all. Nor yet his act. It follows on no such\nchain of antecedents. It is done _in view_ of certain consequents.\n\nIf, therefore, we ask what can be conceived respecting the causation of\nthe Universe,--its cause must (as Powell says), be placed absolutely\noutside and prior to the whole series. In other words,--a volitional\nor First cause can never belong to the physical chain of antecedent\nand consequent, bound together by natural law. And the reason is\nplain: in no true sense can such Cause ever be a necessary consequent\nat all. Such a Cause calls into existence, not only A, but the whole\nconsecutive alphabet, representing cycles of millions of ages. Not the\nworld's prim\u00e6val state alone,--- but the whole law-connected Universe.\nThus, First Cause, and Secondary cause, apply not to difference of\nsequency alone,--but to an _intrinsic and essential distinction_. And,\nthis distinction is so vast, that between the World's First Cause, and\nany given Secondary cause, there is fixed a gulf of separation as wide\nas the whole potential Universe.\n\nAnother way of looking at the subject of Causation may appear simpler\nto some minds.\n\nLet the reader recal the problems of Idealism and Realism already\ndiscussed. He will also remember what Mr. Masson calls \"the paramount\nresult\" to Mill and Hamilton alike;--the inevitable persuasion all men\nhave of their own distinctness from an external world of things and\npersons surrounding them.\n\nWith this accepted result in remembrance, let the reader ask himself\nthe further question, _how_ he became originally impressed with the\ngrand division of that world of objectivity,--how he first separated\n_Persons_ from _Things_? He will account for the conception in some\nsuch way as this:--As a child, he was injured both by his nurse and\nhis nursery table. He discovered that the table had been placed where\nit stood; but that his nurse struck him with a passionate intention\nof compelling him to obey her, against his own will. And, thus, in\nthe succession of little troubles and events perpetually going on,\nhe learned to distinguish them all into two broad classes: events\ndependent on previous circumstances, such as the position of the\ntable; and events productive of intentional consequences, such as the\nill temper of his nurse. The first class of events he could _control_\nby a change of outside conditions;--he could either move the table\nor keep his body out of its way. But, the nurse he had to humour and\nconciliate; and he soon found, to his cost, that very often his efforts\nto win her favour were unavailing, because her temper was so very, very\nbad. And this whole process of Childish reasoning became confirmed\nin after life by his practical reason, and verified by finding it\nwork well every day. The child who thus ceases to blame the table for\nhurting him, but blames the temper of the nurse, is the \"father of the\nMan,\" who praises or blames only when he discovers a true _cause_; and\nsteadily ascribes _Causation_ to a _Will_. And, employ what words we\nchoose, this causative power is the grand tenable distinction between\nPersons and Things. And no amount of refined theory will ever induce us\nto act upon any other supposition. We remain fixed in our belief that a\ntrue Cause must, without exception, be always a true Personality.\n\nIt is worth while observing, likewise, with what emphasis of words,\nmankind marks its sense of this fact. We all say that we see such and\nsuch a _cause_,--or such and such a _will_ at work. And the energy of\nexpression is justified by analysis. For, when we see an orange or a\ncathedral, what we really perceive through our eye, may be summed as\ncoloured surface, outline, light and shade. And seeing this, we say\nthat we see the _solid_;--that is, seeing effects, we maintain that we\nsee the cause. Moreover, this is true, if we remember that seeing is a\ncompound process; the eye of the mind looking _through_ the eye of the\nbody. And we ventured to use the same language in our last chapter, and\nalso to justify it, when we spoke of seeing the Intelligible. The man,\ntherefore, is not far wrong who says that he sees God everywhere.\n\nLook at the subject in whatever point of view we will,--as an abstract\nquestion--as a calculable problem--or an affair of plain common\nsense,--the result must finally come to one and the same thing. There\ncan be no Cause,--no First to stand before (not in) the series of\nsequences, except a Being, Will, Personality.\n\nNow as a matter of truth, there must necessarily exist some sufficient\naccount of the Universe. Physical Science is right to speak of it as\nunknowable[218] by Physical investigation. It cannot lie _in_ the\nphysical series,--it must stand _prior_ to the whole. It admits of no\nantecedent; but the sum of all existence is its consequent. Therefore,\nthe sufficient account is a first Being, Will, and Personality. We\nmust accept the result and acknowledge its truth, because it is an\ninevitable fact, if the question is argued upon the ground of other\nfacts practically known, and not of theory, conjecture, or supposed\npossibilities. But it involves theoretical difficulties which we must\nacknowledge to be inexplicable. We cannot, however, forget that many\nother truths and matters of fact are inexplicable also.[219]\n\nA circumstance equally true, and equally incapable of theoretical\nexplanation, may be stated as follows. If we revert, once more, to our\nrepresentative letters of the alphabet, it will be recollected that\nthe letter P was taken to represent a crime,--a murder for the sake of\ngain. P had for its consequents _Q_, _R_, _S_, but did not depend on\nthe antecedents _O_, _N_, _M_; it was introduced extraneously into the\nseries. In other words, the crime entailed a number of _effects_, which\nhad in reality been premeditated by the murderer; while, _in itself_,\nit was to be _accounted_ for only as the act of a Volitional Cause or\nAgent. And the remarkable point to us now, is the circumstance that\nsuch a _designed series of events_ can thus be introduced into the\norder of nature by _man's spontaneous choice_. These determinations\nare in fact alterations in the ordinary course of Nature; and\ncontradictions of its absolutely invariable sequency.[be] This fact,\nagain, appears to be theoretically inexplicable, yet is practically\ntrue; and we _verify_ its truth by determinations of the deepest\ninterest and importance to our individual selves. Sometimes, men almost\nstand aghast at the consequences of choosing obstinately; and, through\nyears of sorrow, accuse their own, and their friends' pertinacity.\n\nPossibly, the difficulty in theory may be in some degree softened by\nthe admissions of physical philosophers,--inventors and craftsmen\nof all sorts,--respecting the considerable _allowance_ to be made\nfor \"functioning\" their abstract calculations. The necessity of such\nallowance distinctly proves, that, even in the most exact of applied\nsciences, pure theory and practical result do not commonly coincide.\nAnd, when we look to the concerns of human society, it must be\nconfessed that no amount of sovereign power, insight of statesmen, or\nexperience grounded on precedent or on knowledge of mankind, does away\nwith the absolute necessity of allowing what is called a \"_margin_\"\nfor the actual working of any law, scheme, contrivance, or political\nconstitution. Speculative people are apt to find this truth verified to\ntheir cost and disappointment; and, perhaps, one reason for the general\nsuccess of English administrators in government and colonization,\nis their habit of making _very large_ allowances throughout all the\npractical arrangements. In managing the world, they consider the\n_non-calculable_ element of Will,--and allow for the way in which it\nbreaks in, with sometimes tremendous effect, upon the otherwise regular\ncurrent of affairs.\n\nBut if this be true of the _human_ Will, what ought to be said\n\nof the _Divine_? If we, with our limited power and understanding, can\nthus interrupt many series of events in our world, what shall we say\nconcerning the Volitional Cause of the whole Universe? Concerning a\nPersonality, which was before the chain of phenomenal antecedent and\nconsequent began, and Which (as we have shewn must hold true of a First\nCause), actually willed the whole _as a whole_, and arranged the end\nfrom the beginning? Recurring to our selected figure of the Alphabet,\nthis primary Will, this incomprehensible Person is, in our view, the\nAlpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, and beside Him there is\nnone other.[220]\n\nSo far, therefore, as a consideration of the world goes, and of mankind\nas existing in the world, arguments from analogy would lead to some\npositive expectation of Miracles. Our belief in the Uniformity of\nNature does not exclude them; and our practical experience gives rise\nto a _probability_ of their occurrence. When, however, we lift up\nour eyes to the Divine Mind as Supreme Reason, Miracles appear to us\ninconceivable without an adequate occasion. For we ourselves strive\nto act on _true_, _fitting_, and _reasonable_ grounds of purpose; and\nshall we think less of Him, \"Who teacheth Man knowledge\"? But to pursue\nthis last topic as it deserves, would carry us away from the domain of\nNatural Theology, and into that of Theology true and proper.\n\nOur business has lain with the Natural world, human nature itself\nincluded. And in examining the successional chain, we have perceived\nthat it is not forged of Adamant. Yet there is so much connection and\nunity running throughout it, that we may with the greatest justice\nspeak of the _order_ and _course_ of nature. And, perhaps the _highest_\nkind of evidence to the being and attributes of God conceivable by\nus, lies in the concurrence of _two_ separate kinds of proof; both\nresting on the reality of Divine _causation_ viewed _relatively_ to\nthe World we inhabit. The one,--when we trace (as in this Chapter we\nhave shewn that men ought to trace), the chain of natural sequence\nup to a Personal First Cause. The other,--when we find reason to\nbelieve that the First Cause and Creator of the world, has seen fit to\ninterfere with its orderly course in a manner which distinguishes His\nintervention from our common every-day experience.\n\nFor such intervention, _we_ could probably conceive no greater fitness,\nno nobler occasion, than the purpose of raising Men above themselves,\nand assuring them that there are more things in Heaven and Earth than\nare dreamed of in their Philosophies. And what human dream, vision, or\nphilosophy, could ever have foreseen the things which God hath prepared\nfor them that love Him?\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[211] Tyndall's _Earlier Thoughts_; in his _Essays_, p. 72. Dr. Tyndall\nis never weary of repeating this useful truth, and we may honour him\nfor so doing. The following references are to his last very popular\nwork, and in each place the same thought will be found differently\nexpressed according to the difference of subject-matter. _Fragments of\nScience_, pp. 93, 105, 121, 163, 442.\n\n[212] George Stephenson used to watch the speed of his locomotive, and\npleasantly remark that he was utilizing the solar heat of the great\ncoal-period. The words were his own. The idea was Herschel's.\n\n[213] \"Time is no agent, as some people appear to think it, that it\nshould accomplish anything of itself. Looking at a heap of stones\nfor a thousand years, will do no more toward making a house of them,\nthan looking at it for one moment. The cause is obvious. Time, when\napplied to works of any kind, being only a succession of relevant acts,\neach furthering the work to be accomplished, it is clear that even\nan infinite succession of irrelevant, and consequently useless acts,\nwould no more achieve or forward the completion of it, than an infinite\nnumber of jumps in the same place would advance one toward a journey's\nend; for there is a motion without progress, in time as well as space;\nwhere that has often remained stationary which appeared to us, in\nleaving it behind, to have receded.\"--_Guesses at Truth._ First Ed.,\npp. 61-2.\n\n[214] _Fragments of Science_, p. 442. The passage has been referred to\nbefore--and its _pith_ alone is given here--_i.e._ the central sentence.\n\n[215] _Astronomy_, Chapter viii. init., note p. 264. Ed. 1850.\n\n[216] Page 178, seq.\n\n[bd] Compare our summary of Powell's argument on this point, pp. 173-4\n_ante_. \"We see the necessity of a Moral cause as distinguished from a\nphysical antecedent, when we survey Nature. But Nature does not contain\nthe idea in an _explicit_ shape. She only necessitates its acceptance.\"\n\n[217] Having before quoted at some length from this distinguished\nProfessor, it seems needless to add anything here, except that the same\nsentiments will be found reasserted in his later works.--See _Spirit of\nInductive Philosophy_, pp. 152-3, and 175-9; and compare Chapter II.\n_ante_, Additional notes D and E, pp. 103-107, where these passages are\nin part quoted and commented on.\n\n[218] Of course, if any man pronounces anything _absolutely_\nunknowable, he says virtually, \"my knowledge equals the sum total of\nall knowledge.\"\n\n[219] Every one who writes this word, must feel tempted to ask why\nsuch a condition attaches to any truth. This Essay avoids metaphysical\ninquiries; we must, therefore, rest content with having plainly shewn\nthat it _does_ attach to the _most certain and necessary_ of _all_\ntruths.\n\n[be] The reader may be pleased to recal Professor Huxley's two\nnecessary beliefs--necessary, that is, for making the world we live\nin less miserable and less ignorant. First, that the Order of Nature\nis practically ascertainable. Secondly, that our Volition counts for\nsomething as a condition in the course of Events. (_Lay Sermons_, p.\n159,--already quoted pp. 247 and 8 _ante_.)\n\nEvidently, to count for _anything_, Volition must produce _effects_;\nthat is, cause certain _changes_ in the natural order of things. This\nprinciple, therefore, is clearly asserted by the Professor,--and its\nconsequences follow by logical necessity, as here deduced.\n\nMr. Huxley's idea of the Order of Nature is also coincident with the\nview of it taken in this Chapter.\n\nThe present writer is glad to mark these undesigned coincidences of\nthought. \"Lay Sermons\" had not reached him when this Essay was sent to\nthe Oxford Registrar. Neither had he seen the Professor's Article in\nthe Fortnightly Review.\n\n_Addition._--The doctrine in most complete antagonism with Mr. Huxley's\nposition is described as follows by Dr. Carpenter:--\n\n\"The most thorough-going expression of this doctrine will be found in\nthe 'Letters of the Laws of Man's Nature and Development,' by Henry G.\nAtkinson and Harriet Martineau. A few extracts will suffice to show the\ncharacter of this system of Philosophy. 'Instinct, passion, thought,\netc., are effects of organized substances.' 'All causes are material\ncauses.' 'In material conditions I find the origin of all religions,\nall philosophies, all opinions, all virtues, all \"spiritual conditions\nand influences,\" in the same manner that I find the origin of all\ndiseases and of all insanities in material conditions and causes.'\n'I am what I am; a creature of necessity; I claim neither merit nor\ndemerit.' 'I feel that I am as completely the result of my nature, and\nimpelled to do what I do, as the needle to point to the north, or the\npuppet to move according as the string is pulled.' 'I cannot alter my\nwill, or be other than what I am, and cannot deserve either reward or\npunishment.'\" Carpenter. _Mental Physiology_, p. 4.\n\n[220] Horace would have felt himself bewildered by some modern\nPhilosophies. He says:--\n\n    \"Unde nil majus generatur ipso\n    _Nec_ viget quidquam _simile_ aut _secundum_.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nRESPONSIBILITY.\n\n\n\"The astronomers said, 'Give us matter, and a little motion, and we\nwill construct the universe. It is not enough that we should have\nmatter, we must also have a single impulse, one shove to launch the\nmass, and generate the harmony of the centrifugal and centripetal\nforces. Once heave the ball from the hand, and we can show how all this\nmighty order grew.'\"--Emerson. _Nature._\n\n\"The essence of the Scandinavian, as indeed of all Pagan Mythologies,\nwe found to be recognition of the divineness of Nature; sincere\ncommunion of man with the mysterious invisible Powers visibly seen at\nwork in the world round him.... Such recognition of Nature one finds\nto be the chief element of Paganism: recognition of Man, and his Moral\nDuty, though this too is not wanting, comes to be the chief element\nonly in purer forms of religion. Here, indeed, is a great distinction\nand epoch in Human Beliefs; a great landmark in the religious\ndevelopment of Mankind. Man first puts himself in relation with Nature\nand her Powers, wonders and worships over those; not till a later epoch\ndoes he discern that all Power is Moral, that the grand point is the\ndistinction for him of Good and Evil, of _Thou shalt and Thou shalt\nnot_.\"--Carlyle. _Heroes._\n\n\"Our Religion is not yet a horrible restless Doubt, still less a far\nhorribler composed Cant; but a great heaven-high Unquestionability,\nencompassing, interpenetrating the whole of Life. Imperfect as we may\nbe, we are here, to testify incessantly and indisputably to every\nheart, That this Earthly Life, and _its_ riches and possessions, and\ngood and evil hap, are not intrinsically a reality at all, but _are_\na shadow of realities eternal, infinite; that this Time-world, as an\nair-image, fearfully _emblematic_, plays and flickers in the grand\nstill mirror of Eternity; and man's little Life has Duties that are\ngreat, that are alone great.\"--Carlyle. _Past and Present._\n\n\n    \"Goodness and greatness are not means but ends.\n    Hath he not always treasures, always friends,\n    The good great man?--Three treasures, life and light,\n      And calm thoughts, regular as infant's breath;\n    And three firm friends, more sure than day and night--\n      Himself, his Maker, and the Angel Death.\"\n\n    S. T. Coleridge.\n\n    \"Omnia terrena\n    Per vices sunt aliena:\n    nescio sunt cuius;\n    mea nunc, cras huius et huius.\n    Dic, homo, quid speres,\n    si mundo totus adheres;\n    nulla tecum feres,\n    licet tu solus haberes.\"\n\n    From \"_This World is false and vain_,\" lines 41-48.\n\n        \"Threefold is the march of Time,\n    The Future, lame and lingering, totters on;\n        Swift as a dart the Present hurries by;\n        The Past stands fixed in mute Eternity.\n\n        \"To urge his slow advancing pace\n          Impatience nought avails,\n        Nor fear, nor doubt, can check his race,\n          As fleetly past he sails.\n        No spell, no deep remorseful throes\n        Can move him from his stern repose.\n\n        \"Mortal! they bid thee read this rule sublime:\n        Take for thy councillor the lingering one;\n          Make not the flying visitor thy friend,\n          Nor choose thy foe in him that standeth without end.\"\n\n    _After Confucius_, by Sir. J. Herschel.\n\n \"The world that I regard is myself; it is the microcosm of mine own\n frame that I cast mine eye on; for the other, I use it but like my\n globe, and turn it round sometimes for my recreation. Men that look\n upon my outside, perusing only my condition and fortunes, do err in\n my altitude; for I am above Atlas his shoulders. The earth is a point\n not only in respect of the heavens above us, but of that heavenly\n and celestial part within us: that mass of flesh that circumscribes\n me, limits not my mind: that surface that tells the heavens it hath\n an end, cannot persuade me I have any: I take my circle to be above\n three hundred and sixty; though the number of the arc do measure my\n body, it comprehendeth not my mind: whilst I study to find how I am\n a microcosm, or little world, I find myself something more than the\n great. There is surely a piece of divinity in us, something that was\n before the elements, and owes no homage unto the sun.\"\n\n  Sir T. Browne. _Religio Medici._\n\n    [Greek: ison de nyktessin aiei,\n    isa d' en hamerais halion echontes aponesteron\n    esloi dedorkanti bion, ou chthona tarassontes en cheros akma\n    oude pontion hyd\u00f4r\n    keinan para diaitan; alla para men timiois\n    the\u00f4n, hoitines echairon euorkiais, adakryn nemontai\n    ai\u00f4na'....\n    ..... entha makar\u00f4n\n    nasos \u00f4keanides\n    aurai peripneois in, anthema de chrysou phlegei,\n    ta men chersothen ap' agla\u00f4n dendre\u00f4n, hyd\u00f4r d'alla pherbei\n    hormoisi t\u00f4n cheras anaplekonti kai kephalas.]\n\n    Pindar. _Olymp._ II.\n\n    \"Stern Daughter of the Voice of God!\n    O Duty! if that name thou love\n    Who art a Light to guide, a Rod\n    To check the erring, and reprove;\n    Thou who art victory and law\n    When empty terrors overawe;\n    From vain temptations dost set free;\n    From strife and from despair; a glorious ministry.\n\n           *       *       *       *       *\n\n    \"I, loving freedom, and untried;\n    No sport of every random gust,\n    Yet being to myself a guide,\n    Too blindly have reposed my trust:\n    Resolved that nothing e'er should press\n    Upon my present happiness,\n    I shoved unwelcome tasks away;\n    But thee I now would serve more strictly, if I may.\n\n    \"Through no disturbance of my soul,\n    Or strong compunction in me wrought,\n    I supplicate for thy controul;\n    But in the quietness of thought:\n    Me this uncharter'd freedom tires;\n    I feel the weight of chance desires:\n    My hopes no more must change their name,\n    I long for a repose which ever is the same.\n\n    \"Yet not the less would I throughout\n    Still act according to the voice\n    Of my own wish; and feel past doubt\n    That my submissiveness was choice:\n    Not seeking in the school of pride\n    For 'precepts over dignified,'\n    Denial and restraint I prize\n    No farther than they breed a second Will more wise.\n\n    \"Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear\n    The Godhead's most benignant grace:\n    Nor know we anything so fair\n    As is the smile upon thy face;\n    Flowers laugh before thee on their beds;\n    And Fragrance in thy footing treads;\n    Thou dost preserve the Stars from wrong;\n    And the most ancient Heavens through Thee are fresh and strong.\n\n    \"To humbler functions, awful Power!\n    I call thee: I myself commend\n    Unto thy guidance from this hour;\n    Oh! let my weakness have an end!\n    Give unto me, made lowly wise,\n    The spirit of self-sacrifice;\n    The confidence of reason give;\n    And in the light of truth thy Bondman let me live!\"\n\n    Wordsworth. _Poems_, 1807.\n\n\nSYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER VII.\n\n\n The object of this Chapter is to shew that the universally enforced\n maxim of Responsibility unites in itself _two_ factors.\n\n (1.) A true power of Causation, as explained in Chapter VI.\n\n (2.) A moral distinction of Right and Wrong.\n\n This _second_ element of Responsibility is next investigated, and the\n Moral antithesis shewn to be inalienable. Right can never be Wrong,\n nor Wrong ever Right. Justice must certainly prevail at last.\n\n From the connection of Morality with Causation, it may be inferred\n that the moral Law has its ultimate existence in a Supreme\n Personality--a just and sovereign God. This conclusion is verified.\n Human life and Human death read us the same lesson.\n\n\n _Corollary._--If the conclusion just drawn be accepted, and to know\n God be Life Eternal, we may also infer an _\u00e0 priori_ probability\n of some Supernatural assistances, intended to strengthen our human\n weaknesses and diminish our ignorance. This latter purpose would seem\n likely to include a better aid to happiness, and a more complete code\n of Moral Maxims.\n\n\n _Analysis._--As a social fact, Responsibility is universal, and\n accounted inalienable by any individual man. Responsibility involves\n Causation in the highest sense, together with Moral Sensibility.\n\n Attempts to refine away ethical Rightness. An appeal to consciousness\n proposed:--Distinctness of moral feeling;--and its _Permanence_.\n Antithesis of Right and Wrong an irreconcileable Antagonism.\n Contrasted with correlation of Power and Function; this antithesis\n never fluent, but rigorous, immutable, imperishable, absolute.\n Ultimate coincidence of Happiness with Virtue is a necessary result of\n Independent Morality.\n\n Moral Law exists conceivably in and by a Will alone; as--\n\n 1. Its cause and spring of movement.\n\n 2. Its source of expression and practical authority.\n\n Being supreme, it exists in and by a Supreme Moral Will or\n Personality. That is to say, in and by God.\n\n This conception verified. World inexplicable without Man. Man\n inexplicable without God; Whom to know is Life Eternal.\n\n _Corollary._--Supernatural assistance apparently to be expected when\n Moral Law is viewed as a human endowment proceeding from God. Thus Man\n is made for God, and God has not made Man in vain.\n\n\n Confirmation from--\n\n 1. Image of Divine Love in Nature. 2. Nature of religious Trust as a\n Belief of Reason. 3. Incompleteness of our ethical knowledge apart\n from such assistance. 4. Universal expectation of Mankind.\n\n  _L'Envoy._\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nRESPONSIBILITY.\n\n\nResponsibility is the most serious fact of our whole human world.\nThe affairs of life could not go on for a single day if there were\nno Responsibility. We never release any man from its burden, without\nincapacitating him, at the same time, alike from business and from\nenjoyment. We lay it upon childhood, as soon as the child is able\nto reflect upon his own actions and to choose deliberately;--we do\nnot take it away from a collected and self-controlled age. And every\nreasonable Man who stands by an open grave, or knows that he is rapidly\napproaching his own, feels, (above all other pressures,) the unending\nprospect of Responsibility. Looking at this prospect, we look into our\ndeepest solitude;--\n\n    \"Since all alone, so Heaven has willed, we die.\"\n\nNone of our fellows, the dear companions of our Soul, can carry our\nburden then. And though they walk by our side in life, and cheer us\nwith their love, they cannot really bear that burden _now_. And, thus,\nin the most serious and solemn fact of our existence, we are always\nisolated and alone.\n\nBut Responsibility is something better to every one of us than\na burden;--it is also an incalculable benefit. A man who has no\ntrue sense of responsibility, is an unformed human being;--and,\nin proportion as we feel it inwardly, and express the feeling by\nconsideration and self-control, we make progress in real manliness. On\nthis account, Responsibility may be pronounced our chief aid in the\nformation of a manly character. And, probably, among all the sources\nof human happiness, none yields a more unbroken serenity, than the\nhabitual consciousness of being enabled to act up to the single mark of\nour responsibilities.\n\nWhen a man has attained such practical wisdom, it \"maketh his face to\nshine.\" His daily endeavour to do right, instead of causing him anxiety\nand disquietude, gives a buoyancy to the spirit; which shows itself\nin a peculiar brightness of countenance, unlike every other cheerful\nglance and aspect. The beaming faces, with which early Italian artists\npainted their good men and saintly women, are excellent illustrations\nof this expressional beauty.\n\nLet us consider, through one chapter more, what Natural Theology has to\nsay upon this subject.\n\nResponsibility has been shewn to involve, as one of its constituent\nprinciples, an idea of _Causation_. It is, also, clear that to hold\na man responsible, he must be supposed to possess some power of\ndistinguishing Right from Wrong. In our last chapter, we drew from the\nprinciple of Causation certain conclusions regarding the Universal\nFirst Cause. We have now to examine the principle of Moral Sensibility.\n\nEvery one at all acquainted with modern controversy, is aware that\nfew questions have been more keenly mooted, than the _origin_ of\nmoral distinctions among mankind. The debate respecting them has run,\nfor a great part of its course, parallel with that on the origin of\nour primary intellectual beliefs, alluded to in a former chapter.\nNeither of these controversies concerns us beyond a certain point. Our\nbusiness lies with the facts of human nature, rather than with theories\nconcerning any supposed possibilities as to their growth and accretion.\nBut, one caution we suggested respecting the case of intellect, holds\ngood and is important to every moral inquirer. _Let the analyst beware\nof his alembic!_ There is nothing more easy than to vaporize reality\naltogether, by way of exalting a philosophy.[221] And in Morality, the\nresult is far worse than in speculation. The distinctive character of\nour Moral Consciousness is the \"essence\" which lends to a right action\nits peculiar fragrance and beauty. Invaluable _per se_, it will surely\nbe found of a nature so delicate and fugitive as to escape the tests\nof analytic psychologists. Yet when this is fled, the residuum must be\nworthless to Moral philosophy.\n\nThe \"essence\" just mentioned, merits a few minutes' attention. Men have\nbeen known to assert that their feeling of appreciation in respect\nof a very lovely woman, was precisely similar to their appreciation\nof a handsome horse. No doubt, the right answer is to tell such a\nman that he is utterly blind to the true loveliness of woman; and\ndoes not deserve to call a creature so excellent, his wife. You may,\nalso, point out to him the various distinctive characters of female\nexcellence,--refinement, purity, depth of feeling, self devotion, the\nnoblest heroism, and so on. But if the man has put all his perceptions\nof diverse excellences into a private alembic, and sublimated them\ninto one of the lowest among \u00e6sthetic susceptibilities; no argument\nwill really convince him. The truly bright \u00e6sthetic eye--the grander\nimaginative powers are wanting,--the man is mentally colour-blind.\n\nThe same truth holds good of theorists who tell us dogmatically that\nour Moral Sensibility is nothing better than an accretion of baser\nmaterials which may be stripped off from each other in the reverse\norder of their growth, just like the coats of a stalactite or a\ntulip-root. As may readily be surmised, there is great difference\nof dogma, when judgment comes to be pronounced on the _moral core_\nand _centre_ of the whole. Some are for the needs of society,--some\nutility in general,--the greater part for individual advantage.\nOthers take theoretically polar directions; and with them, rightness\nconsists either in quietism, or else in self-immolation. Self-approving\nfeelings, (each advocate tells us,) have clustered round his pet\ngrowing point; and the clustering has endowed us with all the moral\nsense we happen to possess. Here again, it is doubtful whether a right\nanswer will convince the experimentalist, bent on turning lead into\ngold. Yet whether convincing or not, most honest hearts would prompt\nan indignant rejoinder. The world at large, however, is likely to prove\na more successful arbiter. The utilitarian will find that he excites\nlittle sympathy even when general utility forms his moral kernel;--and,\nwhen it is no more than a personal gain of worldly advantages, he will\nnot improbably be called a rascal. Then \"Quietism\" can never hope much\nfavour in the busy workshop of the West. Though it may seem strange to\nsome minds, self-immolation has by far the greatest chance of winning\nsuffrages; one chief reason being, that the man who sacrifices his own\nprivate advantage, has evidently spurned expediency and selfishness.\nEven those who think his theoretical views erroneous--and possibly\nmischievous, will applaud his victory over the meaner passions.\n\nEach hour of thought the reader can bestow on moral distinctions, will\nturn to certain good. At the very least, it must help to form a habit\nof self-examination. And for this purpose, very simple interrogatories\nbring out very useful responses. If the reader be a rose grower, let\nhim inquire into his own feelings, when he plucks the fairest flower\nin his garden, to give fragrance and colour to the sick room of a\npoor but sensitive little invalid. He will certainly perceive a wide\ninterval between his pleasure in admiring the glowing rose, and his\npleasure in adding to the scanty luxuries of the poor sick child.\nThus, although a benevolent action be a truly beautiful thing, yet\nthere is a difference between the rose grower's impressions of mere\nbeauty, and of pure benevolence. A difference too between his enjoyment\nof beauty, and his enjoyment in benevolently resigning to another,\nthe object which charmed him because it was beautiful. Time, also,\nmakes a vast difference between the two emotions. We cannot recal a\ndelicious odour, as truly as we can reproduce a pretty sight before\nour retrovertive eye. The image of the rose remains, after its sweet\nfragrance has departed. But much, much longer than either, remains the\nmoral impression graved upon the mind. That little pleasure enjoyed in\na brief self-denial, will repeat itself through half a century of years.\n\nPermanence is, indeed, one characteristic which demonstrates the\nparamount excellence of all moral impressions. It is so _difficult_\nto repeat to ourselves the sensation of physical pleasure or physical\npain, that many writers on pathologic topics speak of it as a thing\nimpossible. Certainly, its greatest vividness is in dreams; and above\nall, \"\u00e6gri somnia\"--sick visions--seem to possess the strongest\nreproductive power. It is curious, however, to observe the manner in\nwhich dreams themselves put on a moral meaning. Who does not remember\nSir W. Scott's lines in the \"Lady of the Lake,\" on the returning\nphantoms of early youth,--change, loss, and separation? But those\nphantoms are pale shadows, compared with what we have all felt in our\nvisionary hours,--the consciousness of our own absolute loneliness,--of\nour death,--of a hopeless, endless isolation. Even the very thought of\nour spiritual life,[222] as distinguished from mere corporeal life, is\nterrible to us and hardly to be borne. So overwhelming is the idea of\nthe demand of Justice upon each of us;--the law of human Responsibility.\n\nIt is remarkable, too, that the most common-sense practical people\nsometimes feel these impressions the most acutely. One reason may arise\nfrom the circumstance, that the spiritually imaginative temperament\nof such persons is vigorous,--has few occasions of employment; and\nthrows its unexhausted force into those strong \"Michel-Angelesque\"\nrealizations.\n\nWhatever may be thought on this point, there is no truth of our whole\nManhood more striking, as well as more evident, than the _independent\nvitality_ of our Moral Consciousness. Let us suppose, for example's\nsake, that the reader was once unhappy enough to injure a neighbour,\na friend, or relation. Let the injury be something which you in your\nheart know to be truly injurious;--a thing impossible in your better\nmoments,--but still a thing done. Now, let years elapse, and when the\nthought recurs and the deed is reacted, you feel how wrongful it was.\nAnd when you grow old, and there are few left to love you, the feeling\nwill become far more deep. Put oceans, continents, tropics, between\nyourself and your injured one; the reality is not at all less real.\nThe same stars no longer look down upon you by night,--the sun does\nnot bring back the same seasons at the same time,--but your act is\n_Timeless_;--and, though night and day vary, its criminality remains\nthe same. And worst of all,--the injured one may die, whilst no act of\nreparation may have been performed by you,--no word of love or ruth\nescaped your lips. The deed is irremediable, and you are the doer of\nit. Neither Space nor Duration of years can alter the fact. There\nis a moral mark set upon your conscience; and no human sympathy can\nheal, nor even alleviate the sorrow. Most likely, you never attempt to\nexplain to others the pain you feel, because were the case another's\nyou would hardly comprehend it yourself. Thousands have gone to the\ngrave, carrying heavy burdens of this kind almost or altogether\nunsuspected.\n\nExemption from the laws of Time and Space, is perhaps the most\n_wonderful_ characteristic of our Moral Consciousness. With this\nsolitary exception, we seem to find ourselves in perpetual subjection\nto those laws. But in the realm of Morals it is the reverse. The\nendless theoretical contradictions about the Finite and the Infinite,\n(to which we have more than once alluded,) bear witness to this\nfact. Morality at once puts the two together;--what in its sphere of\ncommission was a finite crime, is likewise an infinite immorality. We\ncount up our faults as sins; but, when viewed awhile in the light of\nconscience, they are most burdensome to us as being, not _sins_, but\n_Sin_. Look at the pre-Christian Eumenides; the last writing of St.\nJohn the Evangelist; the confessions of Augustine; and the life of John\nBunyan; to which we might add more than one great Oxford life;--and,\nthrough them all, the profound sense of Sin underlies every other\nutterance.\n\nAnother salient character of the moral sense, actually existing among\nmankind, may be outlined as follows. We have already considered the\nmanner in which laws appear to human intelligence, as types, ideas, or\nrelations. Amongst them, we paid particular attention to the relativity\nbetween Power and Function. And, when viewing these as polar opposites,\nwith a chain or nexus between them, we saw that the opposition was, in\na certain sense, _fluent_. Function changed into Power more than once,\nbefore each complex process of production became entirely accomplished.\nPower, in accomplishing its errand, continually was lost, and vanished\naway in Function. But between Right and Wrong, the opposition is\nfixed, contradictory, and enduring. Any Logic or Rhetoric which\nattempts to make the antithesis appear fluent, is justly condemned\nas special pleading, and the art of an oratorical Sophist. The only\nquestion asked of the Sophistical speaker, is whether the error he\ntries to excuse was wilful, or unintentional; whether it was a mistake,\nor a confusion of distinctly-opposed moral dictates. So Demosthenes\nsays to OEschines, \"Among all other men I observe these principles\nand these distinctions to prevail. Does any one wilfully do wrong? He\nis the object of indignation and of punishment. Does any one commit an\nerror unintentionally? He is pardoned, not punished.... All this is\nestablished not only in all our jurisprudence, but by Nature herself\nin her unwritten laws, and in the very constitution of the human\nmind.\"[223]\n\nAnd we may all feel quite sure that this is the normal decision of\nMankind.\n\nRight and Wrong stand out as irreconcileable antagonists, contending\nfor the empire of the world. A man who watches the strife without deep\ninterest, and never mingles in the fray because he thinks its issue\nimmaterial, is no better than a Pessimist.\n\nCompare a Duty with a Function, (in the wide sense we assigned to\nthe latter conception,) and two points will at once be evident.\nFirst, how strong the contrast, how wide the interval, between the\nLaw of productive work, and the law of moral activity. Secondly, how\ninextinguishable the contradiction between Right and Wrong. One man\nundertakes some mechanical utilitarian function, dependent on the\npleasure or life of a superior; to whom he is in no other respect\nbound, nor in any way accountable. Another is a husband, a father, or\na son. The object of his natural affection, is also the being to whom\nhis tender offices of devotion are morally due. For different reasons,\nthe daily lives of both these men have become first irksome,--then,\nvery wearisome,--finally, almost odious to themselves. The man of\nroutine goes to visit his ailing superior, and is permitted to enter\nthe sick room. He undraws a curtain and looks upon the face of a dead\nman. Between the departed and himself, there existed no natural love,\nnor any acquired hate, neither duty nor demand. The link was simply\nofficial, and it is broken. Next month, there will be a new Superior\nwho knows not Joseph. Another subordinate will occupy the post of\nroutine; and, under the circumstances, to be released from the old toil\nis a sort of happiness. The tedious function of the past is over; and\nhe carries his powers into a more hopeful employment. Yet Man is always\nsomething to Man, if both are genuine; and there arise a thousand\nregretful memories, and thoughts of kindly interchange of gestures,\nlooks, and words. After a time, the last change of all is thought of as\na thing to be deplored, but gone by,--a thing simply irremediable.\n\nBut how different, when the man who has been morally bound--say the\nson--sees a dead face upturned from his father's pillow! Here is\nanother link of service broken;--service of another kind,--a duty. It\nis gone, the sick bed attendance, the harass, the vexation, endured\nwith a recalcitrant feeling, and sometimes an openly determined\nopposition. And how much is gone besides! The feeling of resistance\nvanishes, when there is no longer a Will to be resisted; the harass\nand vexation appear unwholesome phantoms. To look on the life of a\nfather or a near friend, after death, is like looking on a moonlighted\nlandscape; its harsher features are lost in lengthening shadow; all\nthat we thought rugged and stern, appears subdued and blended with a\nthousand fondly-remembered softnesses. A mild and silvery radiance\nflows over the whole familiar scene;--we gaze and sigh,--and sigh and\ngaze again. To think of its becoming veiled from our eyes, seems like\nlosing a portion of our own existence.\n\nAnd what more is gone besides? The son's thought, which used to mingle\nso strangely with his feelings of distaste,--that, some day, he would\nfill up the measure of that which was consciously lacking in his filial\nduty and devotion. He has now no power of offering sorrow to obtain the\nremission of claims unsatisfied, no possibility of saying, \"Father,\nI have sinned\"! He would die by inches, if, with each slow degree of\nmortality he could revoke a short period of the Past.\n\nIn other concerns of life all beyond human cure is also beyond human\ncare; but this concern is a matter of Right and Wrong. To say the Wrong\nis irremediable, is to utter the sharpest cry of Remorse,--the last\nword of a long Despair.\n\nIt is always thus, when the moral rule intervenes. It is so, when\nan injured friend dies,--the injurer is fast bound by the crime he\nhas committed. It is so, when the Son thinks he has to face things\nundone which ought to have been done,--the opportunity of doing them\nnow lost for ever. Inability to remedy a wrong makes our sorrow\ninextinguishable. And we know by experience, that such a sorrow is\nunlike every other sorrow. It differs in _kind_ from all trains of\nordinary feeling, and seems to belong less to our emotional life than\nto be a dictate of our sovereign reason. And the moral rule is so.\nIn the eye of Practical Reason which (so far as human nature goes),\nconstitutes our supreme guide, a claim of Morality is absolutely\nrigorous--absolutely supreme--and if unsatisfied, absolutely inexorable.\n\nTo suppose anything less, would be to annihilate the whole moral law.\nFor, how can you, or I, or any one, be required to immolate our life,\nfreedom, fortune, or even our ordinary enjoyments, unless the rule be\nperfectly unyielding; perfectly unchangeable? To be binding _now_,--it\nmust be binding under _all_ circumstances, and binding _always_. If a\nsingle claim remain unsatisfied the admission is fatal. Broken once,\nthe law is broken everlastingly. Every man might conceive that his\nown case was, possibly, just one marked for exception. Who, then,\nwould sacrifice at the altar of Right-doing all earthly goods; undergo\nchains, ignominy, dungeon-solitude, pain, lingering hopelessness,\nand death? Who, then, would be able to stand by, and see all these\ninflictions undergone by one he loves best, when compliance with\nwrong-doing would surely set the sufferer free? It is the certainty\nof an equal and unrelenting law, which makes all kinds of endurance\npossible.\n\nIf no other reason existed, this one would suffice to prove that,\nunless human nature is a falsehood, happiness must ultimately coincide\nwith virtue. How distantly removed their final coincidence may be, is\na point which can have no influence on the certitude of our knowledge.\nWe speak here, as we speak of parallel lines which cannot meet through\ninfinity;--only we speak the reverse way;--it is for all infinity that\nvirtue must become happiness. If a man will seriously sit down, and\ntry the contrary hypothesis out to himself, he will see that if held\ntrue, Morality ceases to be imperial, and Man ceases to be human. The\nclaim of Right is to rule the Universe, entire, and in every part.\nBefore that claim, all knowledge, scientific, phenomenal, inferential,\nmust fail and vanish away. Whatever else be true or untrue, this\nmust be rigorous, unalterable, imperishable truth. Upon this truth,\neach reasonable being, percipient of it, is required to act in his\nown individual person. Therefore, in the case of each individual it\nmust hold absolutely true. And thus the moral endowment of Man is\nnot a _general_ sense of Morality; no indeterminate impulse towards\nexcellence floating before him; no mere thought that past generations\nwere made for us, and we for a coming race. What we really know and\nacknowledge as moral truth, is _each_ Man's strict accountability,\nindividual, isolated, and inalienable. Otherwise, individual rightness\ncannot be demanded, and individual suffering for conscience-sake must\nbecome, in some eyes Utopian,--to most sufferers intolerable. The\nmoral law is therefore supreme, or it would be ineffectual. It is\nindividually specializing, otherwise it could not claim individual\nobedience. And to be supreme, both in final effect and present empire\nover each human being, it must obviously be--(as our practical Reason\napprehends it)--Universal. To such a sovereignty there is nothing\ngreat, nothing small. Time sets no bounds, while Reason beholds in it\nthe ultimate perfection and sum of all that went before it.\n\nTowards that complete coincidence of happiness with virtue, the\naspiration of good and the sighs of sorrowful souls, have been breathed\ncontinually. In its realization alone, can our noblest capabilities be\nrealized. For, there is nothing in this world commensurate with the\ncapacious longings of the human spirit. Here, too often, it droops\nlike a beautiful plant in a strange unkindly soil; and, when it blooms\nits brightest, we feel that under other influences it might bloom more\nbrightly still. True humanity is marked by its own specific character,\nas the fit inhabitant of a far more excellent sphere.\n\nWe ask with some eagerness, how may these things be? And the _primary_\nanswer to this question lies within the circuit of our knowledge. Our\nown consciousness, the facts of life, and the reason of the thing, all\nagree in one result. Moral law exists only in, and for, a Will; and by\na Will alone can it be made effectual. In this respect, it resembles\nthe Law of Production, which, apprehended ideally by intelligence,\nbecomes realized by the moving force of Will. Moreover, we have seen\nthat Will is true Causation, and therefore in Will exists the first\nground of Movement. We know in fact of no other. Neither is any other\nCausality conceivable by us, even in hypothesis; and we _think_\nthis causative power of Will only by knowing its real existence and\nverifying its workings through their issues.\n\nYet further. The Moral Law, as a sovereign command, is addressed to our\nWills; and unless it were the Expression of a Will, we know it could\nnever be executed. The Law would remain a dead letter,--a _thought_\nof Intelligence,--an abstract speculation,--ineffective because\nimpractical. Therefore, when we speak of a Supreme Moral law, we speak\nof a Supreme Moral Will; an idea we sometimes express by true Being, or\ntrue Personality. We speak, that is, of God.\n\nExperience deepens to us every day the meaning of this final word. In\nthe world of our present habitation, we see a confused mass of striving\nWills,--the good and just not always in the ascendant,--rightful\ncommands disregarded,--a sovereign rule not visibly asserted. To\naffirm the possible continuance of these practical contradictions,\nwould be to deny the ultimate Moral Unity of moral purposes. This\nDivine consummation is, then, the finality towards which all things\nmust in reason be tending. For even as human nature explains all other\nnature,--as the Moral Law explains all other law,--so God explains Man.\nExplains his existence, otherwise inexplicable, by the anticipated\nvictory of Right over Wrong,--and the complete satisfaction of his\nunsatisfied aspirations. By presenting, that is to say, an adequate\nobject,--a Personality infinitely great and infinitely good,--to\nthe eye of Man's reason,--the desire of his heart,--the striving\nendeavour, and ceaseless energy of Man's whole essential being;--his\naffections, his will, his spirit.\n\nThis elevating thought comes home to each one of us, bringing with it\na peace of mind unutterable. We know that the time must come, when\nthought and memory shall grow faint. Our brain will lose its quick\napprehensive motion, and all our bodily powers must sink and languish.\nOur eyes will refuse to see the faces of those we love; our hands to\nreturn their kindly pressure; our nerves to thrill at their voices.\nBut, whosoever has learnt the lesson which God's world, and God's gifts\nto Man, were meant to teach him, may truthfully say--\"My flesh and my\nheart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for\nEver.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_Corollary._--One reflection will probably have occurred to every\nreader of the last few pages. The rigour of the moral law demonstrates\nto us the necessary existence of a future state of recompense, and the\nsupremacy of a sovereign Will--a divine Judge. Now, does not this very\nrigour leave man as hopeless, as if he were altogether without God? Can\nhe ever expect to perform the behests of that pure and perfect Will?\nThis difficulty would appear valid, were there nothing in the idea of\nGod thus given us, to furnish rejoinders, such for example, as the\nfollowing.--How could the Supreme Judge make any difference between\nthose who are His anxious servants, and those who turn away from His\ninfinite purity with hatred or indifference, if all men were alike\noverwhelmed in one common failure by reason of an inexorable law? How,\nagain, could He satisfy the aspirations of earnest but half-hopeless\nhuman souls, without gathering them to His presence and to Himself?\nThe manner in which such a happiness results to men, may be an enigma,\nso far as Natural Theology is concerned;--but if so, it is an enigma,\nof which, those who reason on this ground, may foresee that there will\ncertainly be granted some solution. And we are not left quite in the\ndark as to _how_ that solution may be found;--a truth we may perceive\nfrom the ensuing considerations:--\n\nThe moral law is presented to Man's practical reason with all its\nconsequences. The divine Idea, when once apprehended, becomes the\nobject of Man's noblest affections. God, Who graved His law of Right\nand Wrong upon the conscious will of His creature, wrote also a law of\nlove upon His creature's human heart.\n\nHence we view the Supreme Being, as a God who formed and endowed Man\nfor Himself. It was thus, that Man's nature received its only possible\nexplanation. Hence, also, the sufficient account of a capacity for\nhappiness which this world can never give;--and, along with it, the\nearnest of its ultimate satisfaction.\n\nBut these evidences of the Divine finger, prove also a Divine\n_intention_. The supreme ruler of the Universe has, by them, written\nupon Man's nature a purpose of making His creature happy. And if so,\nwe cannot but conclude that to the Divine attribute of love, which\ninspired the glad promise, we may look for its certain fulfilment. In\nthis point of view, a miracle worked for such a moral and spiritual\npurpose as the ennoblement and blessedness of Humanity, ceases in one\nsense to be a miracle. It becomes not only credible, but probable. And\nin reality, any event appears _less improbable_ than that incredible\nand most unlovely issue,--the self-contradictory thought, that God has\nmade Man in vain.\n\nThese considerations are drawn from our Moral nature, as just\ndescribed. There are other considerations at hand to confirm them.\n\nIn treating the subject of Production, we saw Intelligence involved in\nevery Idea, and preceding every process. When referred to the Universe,\nIntelligence was necessarily conceived as vast and immeasurable. In\norder to discern the other attributes of that universal Intelligence,\nwe examined the characteristics of Design apparent in nature, and\nsaw everywhere a spirit of superhuman tenderness breathed over our\nbeautiful world. Thus, if there be any personal relation between the\nAuthor of Nature and our race, it ought to be one of trust on our side,\ndemanded by care and beneficence on His. And this feeling is heightened\nby the charm of lavish kindness,--the prodigality of a love Divine.\n\nAgain, if we turn to one chapter of this Essay farther back, and bring\nto mind the rise and progress of our primary beliefs, we cannot but\nask ourselves the question, how is it that the first religious idea\nof the Aryan race--the \"Heaven-father\"--should coincide with the most\ntypical utterances of our loveliest childhood, and our most advanced\nmanhood, _now_?--Is He really our Father? If so, may we not expect much\nfrom His hand? He is a _Person_, not an Abstract Entity,--a Force,--or\na Thing. Our Father will give us, not a stone--but bread;--bread from\nHeaven--bread from Himself. And we see that He giveth liberally, and\nupbraideth not.\n\nThis is not all. The rigour of the Moral Law is an irreconcileable\nAntithesis between Right and Wrong,--a gulf which no human subtlety\ncan bridge. But with all this rigour, it leaves unresolved, to a very\nconsiderable extent, one set of doubts perpetually recurring to an\nhonest mind. Is _this_ or _that_ particular point a duty;--is it right\nor wrong;--or is its observance open to debate? There are obvious\nreasons, arising from the necessities of moral culture and improvement,\nwhy such points should, within certain limits, be indeterminate. This\nwhole topic, however, belongs properly to Natural Religion, a separate\nsubject from Natural Theology. Still, for our present purpose, an\nimportant consequence of the inexactness is clear.--It gives rise to a\nreasonable expectation of some more extensive code not unlikely to be\nvouchsafed us, harmonizing with, and supplementary to, the law of our\nmoral consciousness. And at every age of Man's history, and throughout\nevery country of his habitation, there always did, in fact, prevail\nan expectant attitude of mind, looking on all sides for the tokens\nof Divine Revelation. It was felt also by the wisest, that no human\nforesight could decide beforehand, what aids to higher knowledge and\nmoral virtue might be given along with it. Certainly, every reasonable\nidea of the great and good God, formed a ground for hope and confident\nanticipation of the _Highest_ and the _Best_.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThis Essay has reached its close. May it be permitted its writer to\ndrop the tone of an Essayist, and to say that every word of it has come\nfrom his heart?\n\nMay he likewise ask two favours of the intelligent reader; neither of\nthem he trusts unreasonably onerous?\n\nHis first request is that the _convergent_ effect of the separate\nconsiderations urged in this Essay, may be fairly taken into account.\nIndeed, the writer once thought of appending a kind of conspectus\nor \"summing up.\"--But he would thus have added another full chapter\nto a book which has grown considerably in his hands. Neither might\nthe summary be altogether welcome to the more candid minds amongst\nthose who doubt, yet honestly debate. Most such readers prefer\nputting results and consilient reasonings into a connected shape for\nthemselves. The writer may however venture on soliciting some special\nattention to the breadth of field ranged over;--the wide circumference\nfrom which his various arguments and illustrations have converged.\nThis point is one of considerable value. Great credit is given to the\naccordant testimony of witnesses who have come together from distant\nparts of the world.\n\nThe _other_ favour requested, is that every person who desires to form\na deliberate judgment on the grand topics at issue, will carefully\nweigh in the balance _what_ alternative he can embrace, if he refuses\nto be a Theist. An alternative, that is, sufficient to account for\nthe human Will and Reason, for such a world as our own, and for so\nsymmetrical and beautiful a Universe.\n\nThe system we have advocated on grounds of Reason, asserts that the\nfirst Cause of all Things and all Beings known to us, is God. This\naccount alone is sufficingly complete, and coherent. Against it alone,\nno fatal objection has ever been alleged. And this single fact ought to\nhave a preponderating weight in the balance.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen finally compared together, the _motives_ of our Choice (as\npresented by Natural Theology), stand thus:--\n\nIf explanations of the Universe explain unequally, _that_ account ought\nto be chosen which is easiest in itself, explains the most, and is the\nleast self-contradictory.\n\nIf several explanations appear equal to the deliberative eye, then we\nmust choose the noblest _per se_; and, as Men, we ought to prefer that\nwhich is the most elevating, and most germane to Humanity. In it, will\nbe contained the only true Law of human Progress.\n\n_Either_ motive of our final Choice--still more, _both_ these\nmotives--will bring us to God; and with reason--\"For we are also His\noffspring.\"\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[221] Every reader of Ben Jonson must recal the Alchemical process of\n\"Exaltation\":--\n\n    \"Son, be not hasty, I _exalt_ our med'cine,\n    By hanging him _in balneo vaporoso_,\n    And giving him solution; then _congeal_ him;\n    And then _dissolve_ him; then again _congeal_ him.\"\n\n    _The Alchemist_, Act II. Scene i.\n\nBut who would wish the congelation of our Moral sense? If indeed it\ncould possibly survive the rest of the process.\n\nReading these lines, can any one wonder at the celebrated chemical\nanalysis of bygone days, which ended in discovering an undetermined\nresiduum of dirt?\n\n[222] Compare Job iv. 13, seq.\n\n[223] De Corona. Sect. 274. The translation in the text is Lord\nBrougham's, and his note on this passage is worth perusal. Trans. p.\n185.\n\n  THE END.\n\n  Watson and Hazell, Printers, London and Aylesbury\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTranscriber's Notes\n\nTypographical errors have been silently corrected.\n\nVariable hyphenation within the text has been standardised, and, where\npossible, inconsistent use of quotes.\n\nOther variations in spelling, accents, and punctuation are\nas in the original.\n\nThe author has used recal (instead of recall) throughout. This has not\nbeen changed.\n\nItalics are represnted thus _italic_. [=u] represents u with a macron.","title":"The Philosophy of Natural Theology: An Essay in confutation of the scepticism of the present day","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":161725}